One of the very foundations of evolution
and popular science today is the "geologic column."
This column is made up of layers of sedimentary rock that supposedly formed over
millions and even billions of years. Although not found in
all locations and although it varies in thickness as well as the numbers of
layers present, this column can be found generally over the entire globe.
Many of its layers can even be found on top of great mountains - such as Mt.
Everest and the American Rockies. In some places, such as
the mile deep Grand Canyon, the layers of the column have been revealed in
dramatic display.

Certainly
the existence of the column and its layered nature is quite clear, but what does
it mean? Is it really a record of millions and even
billions of years of Earth's history? Or, viewed from a different perspective
perhaps, does it say something else entirely?

As one looks at the geologic
column, it is obvious that the contact zones, between the various layers, are
generally very flat and smooth relative to each other (though the layers may be
tilted relative to what is currently horizontal or even warped since their
original "flat" formation). Many of the layers
extend over hundreds of thousands of square miles and yet their contact zones
remain as smooth and parallel with each other as if sheets of glass were laid on
top of one another (before they were warped).And yet, each layer is supposed to have formed over thousands if not
millions of years?Wouldn't it be logical to assume
that there should be a fair amount of weathering of each of these layers over
that amount of time?But this expected uneven
weathering is generally lacking (see illustration).1
Just about all the layers have un-weathered or at best very rapidly weathered
parallel and smooth contact zones. Long term erosion always
results in uneven surfaces and this unevenness is only accentuated over time.
How then are the layers found throughout the geologic column so generally even
and smooth relative to each other?

This general evenness and smoothness of sedimentary layers throughout the
geologic column is rather odd especially considering the fact that the current
weathering rate for the continents of today averages about 6cm/thousand years
for the continental shelves. 2,55This means that in less than 10 million years, the entire
continental shelves of today would be washed into the oceans to be replaced by
new underlying materials. This presents a problem since very old
sediments, dating in the hundreds of millions of years, remain atop all the
continental shelves - wonderfully preserved despite many tens of and sometimes
hundreds of millions of years of erosive pressure?

This problem has been well recognized for some
time now. Back in 1971 Dott and Batten noted:

"North America is being denuded at a rate that could level it in a mere 10
million years, or, to put it another way, at the same rate, ten North Americas
could have been eroded since middle Cretaceous time 100 m.y. ago." 62

Also, back in a 1986
article published in the journal Geomorphology, B. W. Sparks commented:

"Some of these rates [of erosion] are obviously staggering; the Yellow River
could peneplain [flatten out] an area with the average height that of Everest in
10 million years. The student has two courses open to him: to accept long
extrapolations of short-term denudation [erosion] figures and doubt the reality
of the erosion surfaces, or to accept the erosion surfaces and be skeptical
about the validity of long extrapolations of present erosion rates." 56

Many scientists reason very old
sedimentary layers can still be found relatively intact on the continental
shelves because in the past they were much thicker. It is just that the layers
above have been eroded away.

In this line of reasoning, consider that the
current layer toping the region around the Grand Canyon, the Kaibab, was once
buried under sediment no thicker than 2,000 meters for a total thickness of
around 3,500 vertical meters of sediment measuring from the bottom Tapeats
Sandstone to the topmost Brian Head Formation (Tertiary sediments). In
this light, consider the popular belief that the nearby Rocky Mountain region
began its most recent uplift, via tectonic forces, some 70 million years ago,
with an additional uplift some 25 million years ago that raised the Rockies up
an another 1,500 to 2,000 meters.82 Yet, despite being exposed
to erosion forces for some 70 million years the Rocky Mountains are still
covered by deep layers of sedimentary rock. One might very reasonably wonder how
much vertical erosion should be expected in such an uplifted region over the
course of 70 million years?

Well, before the Glen Canyon Dam was built, the average sediment transport rate
through the Grand Canyon was measured to be around 500,000 tons per day.68,79
With a weight of 140 pounds per cubic foot (lbs/CuFt) for sandstone, this
erosion rate works out to be around 7.1 million cubic feet of erosion per day
for the Colorado River Basin. Since the Colorado River is supposed to have carved out the Grand
Canyon in around 5.5 million years, how much sediment would have been removed
from the surrounding Colorado River Basin in this time? Well, if we
multiply the current daily erosion rate by 365 days we get about 2.6 billion
cubic feet of erosion per year. Multiplying this number by 5.5 million
years (the supposed age of the Grand Canyon) gives us around 14,000 trillion
cubic feet of sediment removal from the Colorado Basin in this amount of time.
Since the Colorado River drains an area of about 200,000 square miles in size
(~27.8 million square feet = 1 square mile), an average of over 2,500 vertical
feet (~800 meters) of sediment would have been removed, at the current rate of
erosion, in just 5.5 million years. This is about 15cm/kyr of vertical
erosion.68

Of course, 800 meters of erosion is only
the erosion that would take place in 5.5 million years since the Colorado River
started forming the Grand Canyon. But, what
about the Colorado Plateau itself? Well, there seem to be two different
theories. One theory suggests that the
most recent uplift of the Kaibab Plateau (the region of the Colorado Plateau
that is located right around the Grand Canyon region) started some 17 million
years ago and the other suggests that the this uplift actual started some 35
million years ago. Either way, the overall uplift of the Colorado Plateau is
supposed to have started a bit later at around 15 million years ago. Some
suggest that the Colorado Plateau was already uplifted a few thousand feet
before it started its most recent uplift, while others believe that it was "near
sea level" just before its latest uplift.83,84,85,86
Either way, with an erosion rate of about
15cm/kyr, that's about 150 vertical meters/million years or ~2,250 meters
of erosion in 15 million years averaged over this entire region.

This makes me wonder how the relatively young Tertiary sediments survived
atop the Grand Staircase over the course of some 15 million years of erosive
pressure.Was there really over 2,000 meters of
sediment covering these remaining tertiary sediments?I mean really, a couple thousand meters of sediment was definitely removed
from over the gentle dome-shaped uplift of the Grand Canyon region in a mere 5
or 6 million years while the topmost sediments of the Grand Staircase were
hardly touched in 15 million years? - despite having a greater elevation and
relief?Also, if 2,000 vertical meters
of sediment was removed from the Kaibab Plateau after the local dome shaped
uplift, where are the side channels, around the dome, formed by the rivers that
took this large amount of sediment away from this region? As far as I can
tell, there simply are no such significant pathways of sediment removal around
this dome-shaped region. Yet, wouldn't they have to be there if in fact
such a large amount of sediment were in fact removed from atop this dome-shaped
region over many millions of years of time?

Beyond this, consider that the Rockies, which are thought to have started their
most recent uplift during the Laramide Orogeny some 70 million years ago,85,86
are currently being uplifted at between "100-1000 cm/kyr years. . . However, the
rate of uplift is being matched by the rate of erosion, with little or no change
in elevation." 80With an erosion rate of 100cm/kyr, that's 1,000 meters of erosion per
million years or an incredible 70,000 meters in 70 million years.

So, how did the sedimentary layers last all that time in the Rockies?Does the "folding" and volcanic ash/lava flow deposition that some have
suggested really help explain away some 70,000 meters of sedimentary surface
erosion as protection for those very thick layers that remain?Even if the erosion rate were an average of only 10cm/kyr over the course
of 70 million years, would there really be anything as far as ancient
sedimentary layers left in the Rockies?What is
going to overcome even a bare minimum of 7,000 meters of vertical erosion?I just don't see it . . .

Also note that some mountain ranges, such as the Chugach and St. Elias mountain ranges in southeast Alaska,
are currently eroding at "50 to 100 times" the current Rocky Mountain rate -
i.e., at about 5,000 to 10,000cm/kyr or 50,000 to 100,000 meters or erosion per
million years.80
Other mountains, like the Cascades in the Mt. Rainier region in
Washington State, are eroding away at a more modest 800cm/kyr.The Himalayas are eroding away at well over 200cm/kyr.81Yet, all of these mountain ranges still have very
"old" sedimentary layers on their surfaces? Go figure?

This problem has been recognized by geologists
for some time now. Consider an outline of the problem found in a paper published
by C. R. Twidale as far back as a 1976 issue of the American Journal of
Science:

"Even if it is accepted
that estimates of the contemporary rate of degradation of land surfaces are
several orders too high (Dole and Stabler, 1909; Judson and Ritter, 1964; see
also Gilluly, 1955; Menard, 1961) to provide an accurate yardstick of erosion in
the geological past there has surely been ample time for the very ancient
features preserved in the present landscape to have been eradicated several
times over. Yet the silcreted land surface of central Australia has survived
perhaps 20 m.y. of weathering and erosion under varied climatic conditions, as
has the laterite surface of the northern areas of the continent. The laterite
surface of the Gulfs region of South Australia is even more remarkable, for it
has persisted through some 200 m.y. of epigene [surface] attack. The
forms preserved on the granite residuals of Eyre Peninsula have likewise
withstood long periods of exposure and yet remain recognizably the landforms
that developed under weathering attack many millions of years ago. . . The
survival of these paleoforms [as Kangaroo Island] is in some degree an
embarrassment to all of the commonly accepted models of landscape development."
57

Obviously, the reason why "ancient"
surviving paleoforms are such an "embarrassment" to geoscientists is because
landscapes, such as elevated plains, should be rapidly incised by erosion that
results in a well-developed drainage system. Even relatively low rates of
erosion should completely eroded away such an elevated plain in just a few
million years. Large elevated plains covering hundreds or even thousands
of square miles, therefore, should be evidence of the "youthful stage" of
landscape evolution while low-lying, low relief surfaces (peneplains) would be
more consistent with the "old age stage" of landscape evolution. As
Twidale suggests, examples of elevated paleoplains, to include the enormous
Gondwana Surface of southern Africa (largely assigned to the "Cretaceous" age)60
and various paleoplains of central and western Australia (some assigned to "Triassic" age),61 are actually an
"embarrassment" to all the commonly accepted models of landscape development.
He notes that the Davisian theory of landscape evolution offers, "No theoretical
possibility for the survival of paleoforms" since there has been "ample time for
the very ancient features preserved in the present landscape to have been
eradicated several times over." 57
Today these paleoplains are being rapidly destroyed by downcutting erosion in
stream channels.

This is a huge problem, it would seem. Why are the layers still there?
Besides this question, one might ask why we find such evenness and relative
smoothness of the topmost Kaibab layer in the Grand Caynon region? It
seems rather strange, does it not, that so much sediment, 275 million years
worth (as much as 2,000 vertical meters of sediment), could have been eroded
away so evenly over the course of ~15 million years since the Grand Canyon
region (the Kaibab Plateau) is thought to have started its most recent uplift.63
One might reasonably expect there to be much more uneven surfaces resulting
after such a protracted time of erosion - even if there were sediment left at
all in this area after that amount of time.59 The same could be said for each individual layer within the Grand Canyon that
once formed the surface of the ground or ocean floor for millions of years.
How are such flat surfaces maintained over that long a time, or created in such
an extensive manner as is seen generally throughout the geologic column, before
the next layer started to form many millions of years later?

For example,
the topmost layer of the Grand Canyon is the Middle Permian Kaibab Limestone.
Although the Kaibab (~125 meters in average thickness) may vary in thickness by
as much as 30 or 40 meters from place to place around the Grand Canyon, it is
obvious, even to the casual observer, that the Kaibab is relatively even with
respect to variations in its thickness and fairly smooth over its surface
despite being exposed as a surface layer for thousands of square miles.
The question is, "What happened to the thousands of meters of overlying
sediment? How did it get weathered away to leave such an even and
relatively smooth Middle Permian layer on top?" Just look at what the
relatively small Colorado River supposedly did after only 5.5 million years of
supposed erosive activity - It dug a crisp mile-deep canyon with an almost
"punched-out" appearance. But, aside from the erosion caused directly by
the Colorado River, what happened to the erosive forces other than the Colorado
River?

Wind, rain, and other forces of erosion such
as chemical erosion, working on the Colorado plateau over the course of millions
of years would have removed a whole lot of sediment in an very uneven fashion. Erosive forces other than the Colorado
River acting over the course of such vast spans of time
should have created very uneven erosional surfaces generally surrounding the
Grand Canyon on all sides. Look at the pictures of the Grand Canyon above
and note the very abrupt cut that is made at the topmost edge of the canyon with
the relatively flat and even surface of the surrounding Kaibab landscape. How
was such a relatively smooth, sharp edge to the Grand Canyon maintained over the
course of 5.5 million years? One might reasonably think that this edge should be
much more uneven and weathered looking over this amount of time? The region of
the Grand Canyon is itself uplifted, relative to the rest of the Colorado
Plateau, with the Canyon cutting through this uplifted dome-shaped area (see
diagrams). The Kaibab surface of this dome, surrounding the Grand Canyon,
is relatively smooth and even. If the surface layers over this dome had
been eroded away over the course of millions of years, might one expect a very
uneven surface by now?

Of course, the argument is that the
Kaibab is more resistant to erosion than were the overlying layers and that is
why these layers were washed away in such a relatively smooth and even way.
But, where on Earth is such flat erosion occurring today? How is such flat
erosion explained over the course of millions of years? One would think
that the overlying layers would have been eroded to form deep ravines, gorges,
and valleys. Portions of the Kaibab would have been exposed for much
longer periods of time than other portions of the Kaibab - perhaps millions of
years longer. Those portions that were subject to longer spans of exposure
should be significantly thinner if not completely missing as compared to those
areas that were protected for millions of years by overlying sediment that had
not yet been eroded way. And yet, when one looks at the exposed Kaibab
today in this Grand Canyon region, it shows no significant evidence of uneven
erosion. Many areas of the Kaibab are in fact still protected by buttes
and other patches of overlying sediment and yet these protected areas of the
Kaibab are not significantly thicker than those areas that are exposed.

So what happened?
These sedimentary layers are still there covering the Grand Canyon Region and
the Rocky Mountains for thousands of square miles? How were they so
resistant to erosion that is currently removing them at a rather significant
rate? How is the Kaibab so resistant to the expected effects of uneven
erosion despite the fact that it lies exposed over a dome-shaped region around
the Grand Canyon? Even if the Kaibab has only been exposed in this
region just one million years the expected erosion should have removed at least
50 to 150 meters of sediment in a very uneven way. Why then is the Kaibab
so surprisingly even in thickness and relatively smooth over its exposed
surface?
59Also, why didn't the layers that now form the Grand Staircase erode
away like those that covered the Grand Canyon region? They were also
uplifted at the same time and had the same amounts of deposition before their
uplift. Yet, relatively young Miocene sediments (only 30-50 million years
old) remain atop the Grand Staircase while the Kaibab layer (thought to be ~ 270
million years old) is all that is left of these layers atop the Grand Canyon
region? How is this dramatic difference in erosion rates explained?

Some have actually suggested to me that the
Kaibab layer is not at all "flat" since the northern rim of the Grand Canyon is
significantly higher in elevation than the southern rim by approximately 300 to
400 meters. Obviously though, this difference in current elevation is not
due to a difference in erosion, but a difference in uplift. The Kaibab, as
well as the other layers below the Kaibab, are just as even and smoothly
layered, relative to themselves, as they were before the uplift occurred.
There is just no evidence of the erosion that would be expected if vast spans of
time were indeed involved in the formation of the erosive surfaces of the Grand
Canyon, surrounding region, and the Colorado Plateau in general.

Of course, it is true that much of the column
is formed by marine layers that are said to represent ancient ocean beds.
The weathering of underwater sediments is not as significant as that experienced
by the exposed continental plates. However, many of these sedimentary
layers are thought to have been exposed to open air and have been subjected to
higher erosion rates for the past 200 to 360 million years or so (before more
significant uplifts are thought to have occurred in his region some 70 million
years ago) and yet these sedimentary layers remain largely intact without having
been generally weathered away? - again, like a broken record I ask - How is this
explained? Even those layers that contain fossils of land animals, such as
the dinosaurs, birds, and other reptiles, still have no significant weathering
between their contact zones with other layers (see discussion of
"paraconformities" below). Why is this not generally recognized as an
overwhelming problem for the popular paradigm? Why is it not even discussed in
science journals?

Just look
at the sedimentary layers on Mt. Everest. This mountain is thought to be over 50
million years old. Yet, sedimentary layers still cover its highest peaks?
Erosion, over the course of 60 million years, translates into at least 60,000
vertical meters of lost sediment and still there are significant amounts of the
geologic column on Mt. Everest? Originally, after the warping and
uplifting in this region supposedly started some 50 Ma, the thickness of the
sediment above the currently exposed Ordovician layer was no more than 6,000
meters.95 Does this makes any sense?

Beyond
this, some scientists, such as Harutaka Sakai suggest that Mt. Everest used to
be much taller and thicker than it is today - about 15,000 meters tall!
But, about 20 million years ago Sakai argues that about half of it slid off,
exposing the Ordovician layer that currently tops Mt. Everest at about 8,848
meters in elevation. 94 If Everest currently has an erosion rate of about 200 cm/kyr, imagine
what the erosion rate would be like for a mountain nearly twice as tall?! At
just 200 cm/kyr, this works out to be 40,000 meters of erosion in just 20
million years. An erosion rate of 200 cm/kyr is about average for the Himalayan
region given the newer estimates based on 10 Be and 26Al measurements, which
suggest an average erosion rate of the Himalayas of 130 cm/kyr for the lower
altitudes and up to 410 cm/kyr for the steepest areas with an average in the
high Himalayas of about 270 cm/kyr. 96,97

So,
the current evidence suggests that the overlying sediment wasn't there 20
million years ago. Basically, the Ordovician limestone
has been exposed to high-level high-altitude erosion (~200 cm/kyr) for at least
20 million years? - and it is still there?How then can Mt. Everest really be over 60 million years old, or even
20 million years old and still have a Ordovician layer of sediment covering it
as if it had hardly been touched by erosion?

Not only
does the rate of erosion fail to match up with what we see in the geologic
column, especially on mountain ranges throughout the world, but the pattern of
erosion does not seem to match up either. As mentioned earlier, erosion
generally forms very uneven surfaces. Now,
look again at the pictures of the Grand Canyon in this paper and notice the
crisp parallel lines between each layer. Many claim
that there are evidences of erosion in lower layers, evidences of rivers,
streams, rain, etc.However, these are generally
isolated findings such as one might expect if they were formed rapidly, such as occurs with the rapid runoff of waters
after a catastrophic flooding event. The general surfaces of each layer remain extremely smooth and parallel to the other
layers.Just look at the pictures.No one can help
but note the uniformity and evenness of these layers throughout the geologic
column as compared with what we see erosion currently doing today. Long
term erosion causes non-uniformity and unevenness.59We simply do not see this sort of expected erosion recorded in the
geologic column in any sort of general way.

Certainly this
general flatness has been noticed by geologists and there have been some models
proposed that attempted to show how erosion could produce a flat or "planar"
surface over extended periods of time. Perhaps the most famous is the "peneplain
concept", proposed about a century ago by the well-known Harvard gemorphologist
W. M. Davis. Davis postulated that, under special conditions, "flat erosion"
could be achieved which would indeed form a "peneplain" (almost a plane).
The problem is that this model, which gained considerable acceptance in the
early part of this century, is no longer accepted. Garner (1974, p. 12) states:
"The peneplain is Davis's 'old age' landscape. It has been called an imaginary
landform. Perhaps it is." One would expect that any process forming the
abundant, widespread, flat gap contacts in the geologic record of the past would
be well-represented on the present surface of the earth; yet, Bloom (1969, p.
98) states that "unfortunately, none are known" and Pitty (1982, p. 77) points
out that "although demonstrable unconformities abound, even W. M. Davis admitted
that it was difficult to point to a clear present-day example of a peneplain."
65

So, it seems as though the
idea of long term erosion forming widespread flat surfaces is pretty much
wishful thinking since it does not seem to be found anywhere in the real world.
The erosion that is recorded in the geologic column seems to be much more
consistent with widespread catastrophic erosive events acting with great energy
and evenness over a very short span of time.

An outstanding example of a very large flat layer is
the persistent Cretaceous Dakota Formation. The Dakota is unusually thin,
usually about 30 meters thick, with a maximum up to 220 meters. It is spread
over 815,000 square kilometers. How such a thin formation could be deposited
over such a widespread area not only reflects unusual depositional factors, but
the extremely flat topography necessary to accommodate the spread of such a thin
formation. Where do we now see such flat and widespread areas on the continents
waiting for the deposition of new formations?

Consider also the
Jurassic Morrison Formation (famous for its dinosaur fossils). It covers over
1,000,000 square kilometers being spread from Canada to Texas. It is
substantially thicker than the Dakota, usually around 100 meters thick. It has
been suggested that it was distributed by widespread flowing water. The fossils
found within it are generally oriented with respect to flow - confirmed by GPS
mapping. However, ancient channels of major rivers that would help distribute
the sediments over such a wide area have not been found. The Triassic Chinle
Group, famous for its petrified wood, evenly covers some 800,000 square
kilometers, being spread from Idaho to Texas and from California to Wyoming.

All these formations required not only extremely widespread
flat areas to be deposited upon, but truly unusual spreading factors.Where do we see, at present, such depositional forces at work on the
continents of the Earth today? In this linethe geologist Carlton Brett, of the University of Cincinnati, has
fairly recently noted:

"The realization
that much of the geologic record, particularly in shallow water environments,
actually accumulates as a series of catastrophic events (as expressed in Derek
Ager's eloquent analogy to the lives of soldiers: "long periods of boredom and
brief periods of terror") goes a long way toward explaining the persistence of
certain layers. Distinctive, thick storm beds (tempestites), turbidites,
deformed ("seismite") beds and, above all, widespread volcanic ash layers may
provide isochronous markers. Such beds may persist over areas of many hundreds
to thousands of square kilometers precisely because they are the record of truly
extraordinary, oversized events."64

So, even though Brett is a firm believer in the popular
notion that the geologic column represents vast periods of time, he is part of a
growing number of geologists who are starting to recognize that the geologic
column is generally formed, as a rule, by a series of catastrophic events.
For example, consider the comments of David Raup from the University of Chicago:

". . .
contemporary geologists and paleontologists now generally accept catastrophe as
a 'way of life' although they may avoid the word catastrophe... The periods of
relative quiet contribute only a small part of the record. The days are almost
gone when a geologist looks at such a sequence, measures its thickness,
estimates the total amount of elapsed time, and then divides one by the other to
compute the rate of deposition in centimeters per thousand years. The nineteenth
century idea of uniformitarianism and gradualism still exist in popular
treatments of geology, in some museum exhibits, and in lower level
textbooks....one can hardly blame the creationists for having the idea that the
conventional wisdom in geology is still a noncatastrophic one." 66

Also, consider the statements of Robert Dott published in a 1982
edition of Geotimes: "I hope I have convinced you that the
sedimentary record is largely a record of episodic events rather than being
uniformly continuous. My message is that episodicity is the rule, not the
exception. . . We need to shed those lingering subconscious constraints of old
uniformitarian thinking." 67

Of course, the belief is that between these catastrophic
events were very long periods of relative calm. However, if there were
these very extensive periods of non-catastrophic change, where is the evidence
of uneven erosion that would leave its mark after such extended periods of time?
(Back to Top)

So, if the current
features of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado Plateau, Kaibab Plateau, and
sedimentary layers are inconsistent with ancient formation and tens of millions
of years of erosive pressures, what other explanation might there be?

Well, it seems to me
that sedimentary layers and topographical features of this entire region were
formed very rapidly. The majority of the sedimentary layers were laid down
in rapid succession, while the underlying layers where still relatively soft and
non-lithified (not turned to hard stone yet) by a serious of massive
closely-spaced catastrophic depositional events (see section on Clastic Dikes
below).Tectonic activities were very strong at this
time and mountains were being built extremely rapidly.
The Colorado Plateau was also uplifted very very rapidly after the initial
formation of the sedimentary layers.

After this formation, a massive amount of water was suddenly released in
a huge runoff that covered several states, flowing from east to west.All of the sediment over the Grand Canyon region, above the Kaibab, was
removed very rapidly by an extremely wide sheet of rapidly running water.Cedar Ridge was one massive waterfall. One can visualize this by looking
from the Lake Powell region toward the Grand Canyon region in the satellite
photo to the right.Notice that there is a distinct
V-shaped formation at the tip where the eastern Grand Canyon begins - pointing
toward Lake Powell.One can also recognize the deep
punched-out appearance of the Canyon itself from the satellite photo as well as
many of the other Canyon photos presented here. In other photos one can see the
massive cliff-like faces that form a very wide valley where, in the middle, the
Grand Canyon has been formed.The Grand Canyon is actually the baby canyon in comparison to the canyon
in which is sits.

It
seems that the sheet of rushing water dissipated before it could remove
all of the elevated features, such as the various flat-topped buttes, in the GC
region - which still remain as isolated islands sticking up above the relative
flatness of the surrounding landscape. Also, as the water rapidly
dissipated and the sheet of water narrowed, the "steps" of the Grand Staircase
were formed.

The
remaining flow of water, which was still massive for a period of time (relative
to today's Colorado River), carved out the Grand Canyon, as we know it today,
quite rapidly - backing up on many occasions as it was blocked by lava damns
which rapidly filled the Canyon and blocked water flow every now and then for a
few years at a time. The massive volcanic activity was, of course, only to be
expected in a time of magnificent tectonic upheaval. When these lava dams
collapsed in a catastrophic manner within the Grand, within a matter of minutes
according to recent research (see section "Younger with Time" below), the built
up lake of water behind them was released suddenly as a 2,000 foot wall of
water. These repeated catastrophic floods, though very small in comparison
to the initial catastrophes, carving out large amounts of the Grand Canyon very
rapidly.

But,
what about the fact that the Grand Canyon has many sharp horseshoe bends and
turns? How can rapidly running water form such hairpin turns - especially
in solid rock?

For one thing, water that is flowing fast enough can
eat up solid rock incredibly fast. Even so, during the formation of most
of the erosion features of this region, the sedimentary layers were not solid
rock - they were still relatively soft. The massive flooding event that
carved out the Grand Staircase and then the Grand Canyon, removing some 2,000
vertical meters of sediment from over the Kaibab Plateau in a very even-handed
sweep, was working on relatively soft recently deposited sediments.

Also,
if one looks carefully at the photos of this region, especially the one taken
from a satellite view, it is interesting to note that the beginning of the
Canyon, at the easternmost tip, is very straight. There simply aren't any
significant twists or U-shaped turns. It is basically just a straight
shot. It is also very crisply punched out from the surrounding landscape.
The walls are very sharp and steep. These are all features indicating very
large volumes of rapidly flowing flood waters.

Now,
notice the western Canyon. It is when one gets to the western Canyon that
one starts to see more of these sharp turns and bends in the path of the
Colorado River. This seems reasonable, in the light of a catastrophic
deluge model, since some of the energy of the flooding river would be used up as
it traveled through the newly formed/forming eastern Canyon. So, as the
speed and energy of the river began to diminish, it would begin to form some
sharp U- and S-shaped bends as it came to the western aspect of the newly
forming canyon.

In
short, all of the features of the entire Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountains,
to include the formation of the sedimentary layers themselves, and their erosive
features, such as the Grand Staircase and the Grand Canyon, were all formed,
pretty much as we seen them today, within a few hundred to a couple thousand
years at most. The sectional topics that follow seem to support this
interpretation on a local as well as a more global scale. (Back
to Top)

Consider that by the late 1800s geologists were beginning to realize that
the Colorado River within the Grand Canyon had been blocked several times and at
several locations by lava dams that were built when local volcanoes spewed their
molten lava into the developing canyon. Of course, being uniformitarian in
their thinking, these earlier geologists theorized that these lava dams were
each slowly worn away in sequences of tens of thousands of years as water flowed
over them. At first, it was thought that the Grand Canyon started its
formation with the uplift of the Kaibab plateau around 70 million years ago
(Ma). This view lasted over 50 years until around the 1970s when the age
of the Grand Canyon started evolving downward to around 5.5 Ma.70,72
This view lasted for about 30 years until 2002.

In 2002 the long
cherished uniformitarian concept of slow formation of the Grand Canyon was
challenged by geologists who presented evidence that these lava dams did not
erode away slowly at all. Instead, mounting evidence suggests that
these lava dams failed suddenly, within minutes, in
catastrophic events of staggering proportions. These geologists
suggest that the sudden failure of these lava dams released raging torrents of
water carrying up to "37 times" more water than the largest ever recorded
flooding of the mighty Mississippi River.70 Of course, the
reason that such massive amounts of water could be stored and released so
quickly is partially due to the fact that some of the dams were very large,
rising up to 2,000 feet above the river bed. It seems that some of these
larger dams lasted just long enough for very large amounts of water to build up
behind them. The formation of very large lakes behind some of these dams
seems to have proceeded at a very rapid rate since there is no evidence of lakes
existing in the region beyond very short periods of time. Then, with the
sudden failure of a 2,000 foot dam, a huge wall of rapidly rushing water charged
through the Canyon carving out significant portions of the Canyon in very short
order.70,71 But, why did these dams fail so quickly?

As it turns out, lava
dams are inherently unstable. This is because when molten lava meets cold
river water it cools very rapidly. This rapid cooling effect turns the
lava into fragile walls of glass. As this glass is cooled and heated it
fractures quickly and easily, sometimes "explosively". Not all that
surprisingly then, recent evidence seems to suggest that many of the dams failed
from the bottom up since the glass content was greatest at the base of the dams.
Also, various fault lines run through the Grand Canyon. Active earthquakes
were thought to affect the Grand Canyon region during the time of the various
lava flows. It seems then that with the help of even minor earthquakes
fragile dams with glass bases supporting the enormous pressure of very large
lakes would indeed fail in a catastrophic manner in very short order.70,71,72,73

Such a massive and sudden release of water would obviously
result in very rapid erosion. In fact, growing numbers of geologists now
believe that certain portions of the Grand Canyon, once thought to be up to 5
million years old (Marble Canyon and the Inner Gorge), may be as young as
600,000 years old.70,71 Talk about getting younger with time!
An 8-fold decrease in supposed age is a very dramatic reduction. How could
geologists have been so far off in their dating techniques? Some
mainstream geologists are even starting to refer to the Grand Canyon as a
"geologic infant." This is especially interesting because the initial
estimates were supposedly backed up by fairly reliable potassium-argon (K-Ar)
radiometric dating techniques , which are now thought by some to be inaccurate
in this region due to the lack of complete removal of the argon daughter product
at the time of initial formation of the lava dams.72

Further evidence for
a catastrophic model comes from USGS scientist and University of
Arizona (UA) graduate, Jim O'Conner, along with UA hydrologist Victor Baker and
others, who found evidence of a "400,000 cfs [cubic feet per second] flow
that occurred about 4,000 years ago." 70 For comparison, this
is about the rate of catastrophic flow that would result if the Glen Canyon Dam
suddenly failed. Taking this into account, scientists have noted
that, "Large sustained floods can cause rapid downcutting in bedrock. The
Inner Gorge and Marble Canyon are essentially giant slot canyons: features
consistent with rapid down-cutting." 70 Also, when large dams
fail catastrophically, such as Idaho's Teton Dam did in 1976, they leave
distinctive profiles in soils and on canyon walls. The water drops quickly
with an exponential decay curve. Such decay curves are clearly evident in the
Grand Canyon. For this sort of catastrophe to happen the lava dams must
have failed almost instantaneously - as did the Teton dam, which failed and was
completely destroyed in less than 2 hours.70

Because the Grand Canyon lava dams were so unstable, the lakes that formed
behind these dams did not have very much time to develop. In fact, the
evidence clearly shows that these lakes must have filled fairly quickly before
they were drained catastrophically a short time later. Though these lakes
were sometimes very large when they emptied, they did not leave evidence of
significant deltas or expected sedimentation, which would have developed if
these lakes had survived longer than tens of years to a few hundred years.70,71,72

Another interesting finding comes from the field work of Webb, an adjunct
faculty member of the University of Arizona department of geosciences, hydrology
and water resources. With co-researchers Fenton and Cerling, Webb applied
a newly developed "cosmogenic dating method", developed by Cerling, to
date basalt flows and other landforms in the Grand Canyon. The technique
measures how long a surface has been exposed to cosmic rays from space.
Their application of this technique to lava flows in the western Grand
Canyon is thought to make this region one of the best understood in terms of the
ages of volcanic features in the Southwest. Interestingly enough, they
dated some of the lava flows at only "1,300 years old." 70

Then, in 2007, a group of researchers (largely from Arizona and
New Mexico) published their work on argon-argon dating (40Ar/39Ar
dates) of the Grand Canyon. They argued that earlier 40K/40Ar
dates indicating that Grand Canyon had been carved toessentially its
present depth before 1.2 Ma, were significantly off base. Their own
calculated ages were all <723 ka, with age probability peaks at 606, 534,
348,192, and 102 ka (Link). As low as
100,000 years? Wow, now that's a significant reduction!

This view didn't last very long before being challenged by the
research of another group that decided, in 2008, to date the canyon with another
radioactive dating method (uranium - thorium). Using this method on
samples taken from near the bottom of the Canyon, these researchers think they
have "pushed back [the Grand Canyon's] assumed origins by 40 million to 50
million years" and maybe by as much as 60 million years "to the time of the
dinosaurs" (Link).

During this same year (2008) a different group from New Mexico
used a "recently-improved technique [uranium-lead dating of calcium carbonate
precipitates] to date mineral deposits in cave formations in one layer of the
canyon's rock and arrived at the more ancient age of 16 million to 17 million
years old" (Link).

What's going on here? The assumed age of the Grand Canyon
starts out old, then becomes a "geologic infant" and then gets old again - all
depending upon which dating technique one decides to use? That's a real
confidence builder in the reliability of various dating techniques and how well
they "agree with each other" if you ask me. I mean, the differences in
these age estimates aren't just a little bit different. They are orders of
magnitude different!

In this same line, the very same thing
happened to Mather Gorge and Holtwood Gorge in Pennsylvania. These gorges
were once thought to have eroded over the course of 1.8 million years based on
geochronological and radiometric age calculations. However, in 2004
research measuring beryllium-10 levels (the measurement of beryllium-10 that
builds up in quartz when exposed to cosmic rays) done by Luke J. Reusser, a
geologist at the University of Vermont in Burlington, and other colleagues,
suggests that these gorges may be as young as 13,000 years instead of 1.8
million years.78

A real confidence
builder in the reliability of geochronologists to actually know what they are
talking about better than flipping a coin. I mean, pick your poison.
It seems like, depending upon the method chosen to estimate elapsed time, one
can "reasonably" come up with just about any age for the Grand Canyon one wants
- - from 70 Ma down to 100 kyr. Given that range of error, how can modern
mainstream scientists actually laugh at those who suggest a bit more recent
catastrophic formation of the Grand Canyon? Who are they to scoff given
such a history of huge waffles and ranges of error of their own?

Places like Monument Valley also pose a significant problem.In this valley, there are formations sticking out of the ground in the
middle of nowhere.These are sedimentary formations
that match the Geologic Column, and yet all around them the rest of the column
has vanished. These formations are made up of horizontal layers
that match each other. Obviously the layers that make up these monuments
were once connected before these intervening sediments were eroded away.

So, why are these formations still
there?The current explanation is that "weathering" took the rest of the column
away over the course of more than 50 million years but left these small
resistant portions of it in the middle of this huge valley.4Well, how on earth did these small portions avoid any significant
weathering over the the course of more than 50 million years as most current
geologists believe, and yet the rest of the entire valley was weathered away?Does this make good sense in the face of what we see happen during
flooding and water runs?After any flood on soft
soil, look at the landscape and see if it does not remind you of something -
like Monument Valley.What we see at Monument Valley
seems much more consistent with the idea of a huge flood, rapid sedimentation,
and rapid water movement with a quick runoff and not so much with the current
idea of eons of selective erosion. Also, as previously discussed, 50 million
plus years of erosion in this region would remove enough sediment to wash away
all the layers down to the underlying granite several times over. The fact
that such thick sedimentary layers are still covering the Colorado plateau at
all after 50 million years of supposed uplift and erosive pressures is truly a
mystery.

Look at the
pictures of this region again and notice that the monuments are arranged in a
linear fashion and that their sides are pretty much vertical, like they were
punched out with a huge cookie-cutter from the surrounding landscape. This is
very similar to what we see throughout the Colorado plateau, including the Grand
Canyon region. Notice also that the intervening landscape between the
monuments is relatively flat and even. In one of the pictures there are
even very large ripple marks evident in the middle of the valley.
All of this speaks to a rapid formation by an almost unimaginably huge
catastrophic flood that formed these features over days to weeks. Current
orientation on a massive scale is clearly visible especially from aerial
photographs of the region. Such features simply cannot be formed gradually
but clearly speak of a sudden catastrophe or shortly spaced catastrophes of
magnificent proportions.

It is very
much the same situation as we see in eastern Washington State with the formation
of the Scablands.
For much of the twentieth century geologists claimed that the Scablands were
formed by very slow processes of erosion over the course of millions of years of
time. Though scorned and ridiculed for many decades, J Harlen Bretz
proposal that only a catastrophic deluge could have formed the Scabland features
finally won the day. (Back to Top)

Arches National Park, located in southeastern Utah, boasts the greatest density
of natural arches in the world. There are more than 2,000 of them within a
73,000 acre area. This area, once buried under almost a mile of sedimentary
layering, has now been exposed by erosion. Many of the resulting arches
are quite fantastic, almost unbelievable. The longest one, Landscape Arch, spans
some 306 feet from base to base! Others are isolated, all by themselves,
like lone monuments. 88 So, how on Earth were they formed?

According to
mainstream geologists, these arches were formed by erosion over some 100 million
years of time. What happened is that very deep sedimentary layers were
formed over hundreds of millions of years and then there was a local uplift in
the Arches National Park region. This uplift created deep cracks that
penetrated the buried sandstone layers. Then, over very long periods of
time, erosion wore away the exposed rock in such a way that the cracks became
bigger and bigger and the sandstone walls or "fins" became thinner and thinner.
Summer and winter frosting and thawing cased crumbling and flaking of the porous
sandstone and eventually cut through some of the fins. The resulting holes
were enlarged into arches by further weathering. 87

There are a few
other explanations for the formation of various types of arches, but generally
speaking this is the basic story. What is most interesting to me, however,
is that all of these stories involve many millions of years of erosive pressure.
The problem with this is that erosion rates are just too high for such
thin-walled "fins" and delicate arches to survive more than a few tens of
thousands of years. There is just no way that such delicate structures
could survive millions of years of erosion. This is especially true when
one considers that the average erosion rate in this region is around 15cm per
thousand years. That is enough erosion pressure to erode all of the layers away
down to the underlying granite several times over in 100 million years (see
above discussion of erosion rates).

Beyond this,
consider the uneven way that erosion works today. Erosion does not
maintain such sharp knife-like surfaces over long periods of time. Rather,
it rounds out sharp protruding surfaces and rapidly reduces the highest reliefs
that are protruding above the surrounding landscape. Note also that only
the surface layers of these fins show any evidence of erosion. What
happened during the many millions of years that these layers were being formed?
Why was there no significant evidence of erosion during this time - leaving
evidence of its activity in the underlying layers? It just isn't there.

It all seems much
more consistent with relatively rapid deposition followed by very rapid erosion
in the not so distant past. These arches and monuments are largely stream
oriented with the surrounding landscape. The lone monuments and arches in
particular, in stark relief relative to the surrounding landscape, simply could
not have survived long periods of time while large amounts of surrounding
sediments were neatly removed by erosion forces the mysteriously left these
relics untouched. Only a very rapid and massive flooding event with runoff
occurring before complete leveling of all such remaining monuments is consistent
with the formation and preservation of such large and delicate arches, fins,
monuments, and precariously balanced boulders atop high pinnacles. (Back
to Top)

Powerful evidence against the notion that long
periods of time (thousands to millions of years) were required to form the the
geological record is provided by what geologists call paraconformities.
Paraconformities are places where huge amounts of time are thought to have
passed, yet there is very little physical evidence to show for it. Remember that
the top of each layer must once have formed the sea-floor or a land surface
before being covered up by the next layer. Of course, as the surface layer, one
would think that such a surface would become significantly changed by the forces
of erosion over relatively short periods of time. The very next tide or
rainstorm will begin working upon what came before, making surfaces uneven in
various patterns common to the way erosional and depositional forces act today.
Channels and gullies will begin to form. Soon, parts or sections of various
layers will be completely removed . Also, living creatures that burrow
into the sediment, excavating it to build dwelling places or to feed, will mix
up the neat layering lines of the original layers. This process is called
"bioturbation". Bioturbation is an extremely effective way of destroying
layering in sedimentary rocks by mixing up the sediment and homogenizing it.

It is easy to find modern-day examples of this.
Hurricane Carla laid down a distinctive layer of sediment off the coast of
central Texas in 1961. About twenty years later, geologists returned to this
layer to find out what had happened to it. Most of the layer had been destroyed
by living creatures burrowing into it and disturbing it, and where the layer
could still be found it was almost unrecognizable.43 In the
light of such modern day findings, it is very difficult to imagine how such
layering of sediment found throughout the geologic column and such crisp lines
between these layers could have been kept in such pristine condition for not
only tens or hundreds of years, but hundreds of thousands and even millions upon
millions of years of time. And yet, throughout the geologic column, more
often than not, there are missing layers representing millions of years between
two perfectly fitted layers that are as flat as can be. If the missing
layer really represents millions of years of elapsed time, there should be
significant evidence of erosive disruption at these junctions, but it just isn't
there. N.D. Newell, in the 1984 issue of the Princeton University Press,
made a very interesting and revealing comment concerning this paraconformity
phenomenon:

"A puzzling characteristic of the
erathem boundaries and of many other major biostratigraphic boundaries
[boundaries between differing fossil assemblages] is the general lack of
physical evidence of subaerial exposure. Traces of deep leaching, scour,
channeling, and residual gravels tend to be lacking, even where the underlying
rocks are cherty limestones (Newell, 1967b). These boundaries are
paraconformities that are usually identifiable only by paleontological
[fossil] evidence." 53

Newell noted in an earlier paper that,
"A remarkable aspect of paraconformities in limestone sequences is general
lack of evidence of leaching of the undersurface. Residual sods and karst
surfaces that might be expected to result from long subaerial exposure are
lacking or unrecognized. . . The origin of paraconformities is uncertain, and I
certainly do not have a simple solution to this problem." 58

"I was much influenced early in my
career by the recognition that two thin coal seams in Venezuela, separated by a
foot of grey clay and deposited in a coastal swamp, were respectively of Lower
Palaeocene and Upper Eocene age. The outcrops were excellent but even the
closest inspection failed to turn up the precise position of that 15 Myr gap."
54

In the light of such testimonies, consider again such sedimentary
layers as are found in the the Grand Canyon. Note that the entire
Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras (the most recent ones) are completely missing -
eroded away as flatly as a pancake from the top of Arizona and yet it is known
that these layers were in fact once there. Consider Red Butte, a nearby
butte that is very close to the Grand Canyon and yet contains layers that were
once covering the topmost layers of the Grand Canyon and much of Arizona.
How where these layers eroded away so neatly from the rest of Arizona and over
the Grand Canyon over an extended course of time and yet Red Butte remains,
apparently so resistant to such powerful erosive forces? The same question
can be asked about the formations found in places like Monument Valley and
Beartooth Butte (see below).

In any case, the top layers of the Grand Canyon
are classified as part of the Permian age (about 250 million years old).
The usual expectation of geologists would call for the Pennsylvanian layer to be
below that, but there simply is no Pennsylvanian layer. Millions of years
of sedimentary time are completely missing with the next layer down, the top of
the Redwall Limestone layer (part of the Mississippian age dated at
between 345 to 325 million years old), still as flat as a pancake with no
evidence of erosion at all as a mechanism to remove the Pennsylvanian layers.
The red color of the Redwall Limestone is actually the result of being stained
by iron oxide derived from the overlying Supai Assemblage. It is very
interesting that many meters of solid rock could be stained so completely and so
evenly by iron oxide from overlying sediments. This phenomenon would be much
easier to explain if the Redwall layers were still soft and wet when the
overlying Supai layers were formed.

Below the Redwall Limestone should come the Devonian, Silurian, and
Ordovician layers (totaling over 150 million years of time), but they too are
completely missing except for a few small "lenses" of Devonian. Instead,
the Redwall is found resting directly and flatly on the Muav Limestone - which
contains many trilobites and other Cambrian fossils. What is even more
interesting is that on the north side of the Grand Canyon there can be found
several alternating layers of Cambrian Muav neatly and very flatly interspersed
between layers of Mississippian Redstone! This interbedding of two widely
separated periods of sedimentary rock cannot be easily explained by popular
geologists who think that these periods really did exist many millions of years
apart in time. Yet, as one moves up and down the column in this location the
layers flash back and forth in 200 million year jumps? The contact between the
two layers is a true sedimentary contact and thus Muav Limestone was deposited
on top of the Redwall Limestone. How is this sort of phenomenon explained if
these layers really were separated by such huge spans of time as is popularly
believed by scientists? Rather, it seems much more consistent with rapid
shortly spaced, even contemporaneous, deposition.

Another interesting paraconformity can be found
at Dead Horse Point in Utah.44 Exposed by the erosive forces of
the Colorado River there are two major gaps in the geological sequence - one
thought to represent 10 million years, and the other 20 million years. The 10
million year gap has been traced over 100,000 square miles (250,000 sq. km).
Sandwiched between these two gaps are deposits of the Moenkopi Formation, a
sequence of continental deposits (important, because on land a layer is more
vulnerable to gully and channel erosion). Yet again, there is no evidence of a
prolonged period of erosion along the tops of these layers. They are as flat and
featureless as a very large parking lot. Then, there is the Deccan Plateau
in India, which is made up of a thick pile of basalt lava flows. These basalts
are thought to have been erupted throughout a period of several million years.
Interestingly enough, it is well recognized that each individual lava flow must
have formed very quickly because they spread out over very large distances (some
can be traced over 100 miles) before they had time to cool. Each flow probably
formed in just a few days, so the bulk of the geological time is thought to have
passed between each eruption. The creates a problem since evidence for
long time gaps between the flows is lacking. The tops of the flows are
strikingly flat, implying that there was minimal time for erosion to take place
between eruptions. For instance, the village of Shyampura is built on top of one
of the lava flows which forms a flat plateau nearly three miles long and more
than a mile wide. The level does not vary more than 50 feet over the whole area.
If thousands of years passed between each eruption, then why had the lavas not
been carved into dendritic patterns and conical hills that modern day erosion
produces?

The Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG), located
in the north western part of the United States (eastern Washington, northern
Oregon, and western Idaho), is also quite interesting. This basalt group
is rather large covering an area of 163,700 square kilometers and fills a volume
of 174,000 cubic kilometers. The vast extent and sheer volume of such individual
flows are orders of magnitude larger than anything ever recorded in known human
history.
Within this group are around 300 individual lava flows each of rather uniform
thickness over many kilometers with several extending up to 750 kilometers from
their origin. The CRBG is believed to span the
Miocene Epoch over a period of 11 million years (from ~17 to 6 million years ago
via radiometric dating).47

Now, the problem with the idea that these flows
span a period of over 11 million years of deposition is that there is
significant physical evidence that the CRBG flows were deposited relatively
rapidly with respect to each other and with themselves. The average time
between each flow works out to around 36,000 years, but where is the erosion to
the individual layers of basalt that one would expect to see after 36,000 years
of exposure? The very fact that these flows cover such great distances indicate
that the individual flows traveled at a high rate of speed in order to avoid
solidification before they covered such huge areas as they did. Also,
there are several examples where two or three different flows within the CRBG
mix with each other. This suggests that some of the individual flows did
not have enough time to solidify before the next flow(s) occurred. If some
36,000 years of time are supposed to separate each of the individual flows where
is the evidence of erosion in the form of valleys or gullies cutting into the
individual lava flows to be filled in by the next lava flow? There are no
beds of basalt boulders that would would expect to be formed over such spans of
time between individual flows.

Some have suggested that the rates of erosion on
these basalts was so minimal (< 0.5 cm/k.y.) that it would not have resulted in
a significant change even after 36,000 years. However, a recent real time
study by Riebe et. al. to determine the effects of various climatic conditions
on erosion rates of granite showed that erosion rates averaged 4cm per 1,000
years (k.y.) with a range of between 2cm/k.y. and 50cm/k.y. What is
especially interesting is that despite ranges in climate involving between 20 to
180 cm/yr of annual precipitation and between 4 to
15ÃƒÆ’Ã†â€™ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…Â¡ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â°C the average erosion rates varied
by only 2.5 fold across all the sites and were not correlated with climate
indicating that climatic variations weakly regulate the rates of granitic
erosion.48 Another fairly recent paper, by Lasaga and Rye, from
the Yale University Department of Geology and Geophysics, noted that the average
erosion rates of basalts from the Columbia River and Idaho regions is "about 4
times as fast as non-basaltic rocks" - to include granite.49
This suggests that one could reasonable expect the erosion rate of basalts to
average 16 to 20 cm/k.y. Over the course of 36,000 years this works out to
between 6 to 7 meters (19 to 23 feet) of vertical erosion. This is
significant erosion and there should be evidence of this sort of erosion if the
time gap between flow was really 36,000 years. So, where is this evidence?

For several other such flows in the United
States and elsewhere around the world the time intervals between flows are
thought to be even longer - and yet still there is little evidence of the
erosion that would be expected after such passages of time. For example, the
Lincoln Porphyry of Colorado was originally thought to be a single unit because
of the geographic proximity of the outcrops and the mineralogical and chemical
similarities throughout the formation. Later, this idea was revised after
radiometric dating placed various layers of the Lincoln Porphyry almost 30
million years apart in time. But how can such layers which show little if
any evidence of interim erosion have been laid down thousands much less millions
of years apart in time? Other examples, such as the Garrawilla Lavas of
New South Wales, Australia, are found between the Upper Triassic and Jurassic
layers and yet these lavas, over a very large area, grade imperceptibly into
lavas which overlie Lower Tertiary sedimentary rock (supposedly laid down over
100 million years later). 47
Robert Kingham noted, concerning this formation, in the 1998 Australian Geologic
Survey Organization that that, "Triassic sediments unconformably overlie the
Permian sequences. . . The Napperby depositional sequence represents the upper
limit of the Gunnedah Basin sequence, with a regional unconformity existing
between the Triassic and overlying Jurassic sediments of the Surat Basin north
of the Liverpool Ranges. The Gunnedah Basin sequence includes a number of basic
intrusions of Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks. These are associated with massive
extrusions of the Garrawilla Volcanic complex and the Liverpool, Warrumbungle
and Nandewar Ranges." 50 Now, isn't it interesting that Tertiary
sediments in the Gunnedah Basin sequence, which are thought to be over 100
million years younger, exist between Triassic and Jurassic sediments?

Also, throughout the CRBG and elsewhere are
found "pillow lava" and palagonite formations - especially near the periphery of
the lava flows. There are a few outcrops where tens of meters of vertical
outcrop and hundreds of meters of horizontal outcrop consist entirely of pillow
structures. Also, palagonite, with a greenish-yellow appearance produced
via the reaction of hot lava coming in contact with water, is found throughout.
These features are suggestive of lava flow formation in a very wet or even
underwater environment. Certainly pillow lavas indicate underwater
deposition, but note that lavas can be extruded subaqeously without the
production of pillow structures. The potential to form pillow lava
decreases as the volume of extruded lava increases. Thus, the effective
contact area between lava and water (where pillow formations can potentially
form) becomes proportionately smaller as the volume of lava extruded becomes
larger. Other evidences of underwater formation include the finding of
fresh water fossils (such as sponge spicules, diatoms, and dinoflagellates)
between individual lava flows. Consider some interesting conclusions about
these findings by Barnett and Fisk in a 1980 paper published in the journal,
Northwest Science:

The Palouse Falls palynoflora reflects
reasonably well the regional climatic conditions as evidence by the related
floras of the Columbia Plateau. The presence of planktonic forms, aquatic
macrophytes, and marsh plants indicates that deposition of the sediments took
place in a body of water, probably a pond or lake. This interpretation is
supported by the presence of abundant diatoms. The general decrease in aquatic
plants and increase in forest elements upward in the section suggest a
shallowing or infilling of the pond or lake, perhaps due to increased volcanic
activity and erosion of ash from the surrounding region. Supporting this view is
the presence of thin bands of lignite near the top of the section, with a 1-10
cm coal layer just underlying the capping basalt.52

Now, what is interesting here is that these
"forest elements" to include large lenses of fossilized wood are widely
divergent in the type of preserved wood found. It is interesting that
hundreds of species are found all mixed up together ranging from temperate birch
and spruce to subtropical Eucalyptus and bald cypress. The petrified logs
have been stripped of limbs and bark and are generally found in the pillow
complexes of the basaltic flows, implying that water preserved the wood from
being completely destroyed by the intense heat of the lava as it buried them.

For Barnett and Fisk to suggest that the finding
of such fossil remains suggest the presence of a small pond or lake being filled
in by successive flows just doesn't seem to add up. How are such
ecologically divergent trees going to get concentrated around an infilling pond
or lake? Also, how is a 10cm layer of coal going to be able to form under
the "capping basalt"? It is supposed to take very long periods of time,
great pressure, heat, and moisture to produce coal. How did this very thin
layer of coal form and how was it preserved without evidence of any sort of
uneven erosion to eventually become covered by a relatively thin layer of
capping basalt? Also note that there are numerous well-rounded quartzite
boulders, cobbles, and beds of gravel focally interbedded within and above the
basalt flows.47
How did these quartzite boulders, cobbles, and beds of gravel get transported
hundreds of miles when there was only enough water to form tiny ponds and small
shallow lakes? Does this make any sense? It seems more likely that
huge shortly spaced watery catastrophes were involved in formation of many of
these features - concentrating and transporting mats of widely divergent
vegetation and quartzite rocks over long distances before they were buried by
shortly spaced lava flows traveling rapidly over huge areas.

Lava traveling rapidly under water would experience rapid surface
cooling and fracturing of this surface "skin". As it turns out, entablatures and
colonnades are a common structural feature of basalts. These features are named
by analogy to the respective horizontal and vertical architectural structures.
Some have hypothesized that as water cools the outer "skin" of the molten lava a
thin crust is rapidly formed. Then, the large temperature gradient between
the crust above and the molten lava below creates tensional stresses that crack
the crust which allow water to percolate through these cracks to come in contact
with more molten lava and form another crust, which then cracks . . . and
the cycle of crust formation and cracking continues. In the end, this
rapid cyclical cooling process produces a thick slab of rock with columnar
jointing.47

One other evidence of fairly rapid cooling is
the finding that these basalts contain relatively small crystals.
When magma cools, crystals form because the solution is super-saturated with
respect to some minerals. If the magma cools quickly, the crystals do not have
much time to form, so they are very small. If the magma cools slowly, then the
crystals have enough time to grow and become large. For comparison, consider
that some granites contain minerals which are up to one meter in diameter!
The size of crystals in an igneous rock is thought to be an important indicator
of the conditions where the rock formed. A rock with small crystals probably
formed at or near the surface and cooled quickly.51

Many other examples of paraconformities
and other types of gaps in time, like these, have been described and no one
seems to have a very good explanation for them. Even as far back as 1967,
Newell, a well-known geologist noted, "The origin of paraconformities is
uncertain, and I certainly do not have a simple solution to this problem." It
seems like it is much easier to defend the notion that there simply were no vast
spans of time separating the various layers found in the geologic column.
Contrary to the popular notion that geological processes are extremely slow and
gradual, the geology of the Earth shows clear evidence of being dominated by
relatively shortly spaced massive watery catastrophes. The idea that
millions of years can be accommodated in the gaps between sedimentary layers
does not stand up to critical scientific examination. These facts are consistent
with the view that our planet has had a short but dynamic history.43 (Back
to Top)

Clastic dikes (UK spelling; dykes) are found in many places
throughout the geologic column, such as the Kodachrome basin.
A clastic dike is formed when a layer of liquefied sediment squirts up into an
overlying layer or layers of sediment (see diagram). This only happens in modern flooding and mudslides if the lower mud layer
or sandy layer was still soft and recently deposited just before additional
layers were added on top of it.The extreme pressure
of sedimentary layering on top of a soft layer causes the soft layer to "squirt
up" at intervals through the layers above it.8

Now, one might think
that after a few million years that all the layers would be turned into solid
rock. How then could solid rock "squirt" up into overlying layers of rock?
The popular explanation seems to be that many types of sediment, such as the
sand which forms sandstone, does not necessarily have to solidify just because
it has been buried under high pressure for long periods of time. 69
For example, in the drilling of oil wells, unconsolidated sandy layers have been
found at depths greater than 1,000 to 2,000 meters. Of course, some of
these sandy beds were filled with oil - which one might expect to contribute to
the lack of consolidation of the sand in this layer. But, the general
argument is that overlying shale layers consolidate before much water can escape
from the underlying sandy layers. Thus, the consolidated shale acts as a seal to
prevent water from leaving the sandy layers. So, the overlying pressure
does not compact the sand in order to aid in cementation. The overlying
layers simply "float" on a layer of water. When some sort of disturbance
happens to crack the overlying layer or layers, the liquefied sand squirts up
with great force through this crack and forms a clastic dike or pipe.69

The problem with this
argument is that liquefied layers are simply not that common. In this light, it
seems rather strange, when looking at the pipes and dikes found in the
Kodachrome Basin and elsewhere, that these formations are quite common in
certain regions. They are found at multiple levels supposedly separated by
millions of years of time. And, some of them even have central cores of
clay arising from a layer of shale. How can a layer be preventing liquid
water from getting through from underlying layers if it is itself still
unconsolidated? What is so special about these areas that layer after
layer of sediment retains the ability to squirt up into overlying layers? - to
include those layers made out of silt as well as sand?

Really now, it seems
that a much easier explanation would be that the layers were in fact formed
rapidly, one on top of the other, while they were all still soft. The
pressure of the overlying wet sediments caused many of the underlying soft
layers to squirt up all over the place through various weak points in the
overlying soft sediments. (Back
to Top)

But what about all the time it takes to turn sediment, like
sandstone and limestone, into solid rock (lithification)? According to the
current understanding of most scientists, the process of lithification is a very
protracted one, requiring tens to hundreds of thousands of years and dependent
upon certain environmental factors such as pressure, heat, chemical composition,
the presence of water, and the chemical nature and saturation of the surrounding
aqueous environment. Clearly then very thick layers, such as the Redwall
Limestone, the Coconino Sandstone, and many other such layers found throughout
the geologic column are evidence of many millions of years of elapsed time.

The problem here is
that there is in fact a great deal of evidence for rapid lithification found all
throughout the geologic column. Perhaps the most prominent evidence of
very rapid lithification can be found in the exquisite preservation of finely
detailed fossils
throughout the geologic column. Some mainstream scientists have taken note and
used this very argument as evidence of rapid burial and lithification in order
to explain the very fine detail of certain fossils. Consider, for example,
the following abstract published in a 2002 issue of Palaiosdealing with finely preserved soft tissue in T. rex
fecal material:

Exceptionally detailed soft tissues have been identified within the fossilized
feces of a large Cretaceous tyrannosaurid. Microscopic cord-like structures in
the coprolitic ground mass are visible in thin section and with scanning
electron microscopy. The morphology, organization, and context of these
structures indicate that they are the fossilized remains of undigested muscle
tissue. This unusual discovery indicates specific digestive and taphonomic
conditions, including a relatively short gut-residence time, rapid
lithification, and minimal diagenetic recrystallization. Rapid burial of the
feces probably was facilitated by a flood event on the ancient coastal lowland
plain on which the fecal mass was deposited. [emphasis added] 74

These
findings requiring a very rapid process of lithification for the preservation of
such fine fossil details are backed up by some very interesting real time
experiments concerning lithification rates. Consider the following
description of one of these experiments, performed by Friedman, detailed in a
1998 issue of the journal Sedimentary Geology:

There is debate on how much time lithification takes. Accounts of
carbonate lithification say that the process is rapid, while other researchers
say that lithification requires long periods of time. Friedman tells of
his account with lithification while on a visit to Joulter Cay, Bahamas.
On a previous year excursion, Friedman placed a sardine can in an area of
sea-level highstands. He found the sardine can one year later and found
that it was lithified with approximately 382 g of hard oolitic limestone
comprised mostly of aragonite. The results of this have huge implications.
This proves that lithification can be a rapid process, depending on conditions.
75

Interestingly
enough, most sandstone is composed largely of sand-sized grains of quartz
crystals cemented together by varying amounts of calcium carbonate (principle
ingredient in limestone) and silica. This calcium carbonate and silica was
dissolved in the water that interacted with the quartz grains during their rapid
lithification process, cementing them together into a solid rock. These minerals
grow crystals in the spaces around the quartz sand grains. As the crystals fill
the gaps between the sand grains, the individual sand grains are transformed
into a solid rock (like the sardine can that was encased in solid limestone in
just one year). The rate of this crystalline growth is related to the rate
of sandstone lithification. As we have already learned, this rate can be
and often is very rapid indeed. Also, other contaminants can be added to this
solution, such as molecules of iron which gives a reddish color to the resulting
sandstone, or various other contaminants which result in all the various rainbow
of colors common to sandstone. 76 In any case, it is quite
clear that such formations within the geologic column did not require long
periods of time to lithify, but rather show clear evidence of extremely rapid,
almost instant, processes of deposition and lithification over very large areas.(Back
to Top)

Big Horn Basin and Beartooth Butte, located near Yellowstone
National Park, pose yet another interesting problem.
Beartooth Butte itself is dated to be around 300 to 400 million years old.It contains many fossils.However, Beartooth
Butte matches the same layers located much lower down in Bighorn Basin.
The standard explanation is that millions of years ago, Beartooth Butte was
lifted up higher during a land upthrust.The
surrounding layers were weathered away over time, leaving Beartooth Butte as a
lone formation.However, if this scenario were true,
then the layers that Beartooth Butte came from would have been solid rock before
the upthrust.If this is true, then why did this
upthrust cause a warping of solid rock along the Beartooth Butte side of Bighorn
Basin? 4The Precambrian rock did not warp up during the upthrust.So, why did the solid rock above the Precambrian rock warp upward during
the upthrust if in fact it was solid - taking millions of years to form?A more logical explanation seems to be that the layers were not solid and
in fact were recently and rapidly formed just before a very rapid upthrust of
the Precambrian under the Beartooth Butte location.The water, which laid down these sedimentary layers, rapidly rushed off
of the upthrusted area.This rapid runoff of water
quickly eroded the area leaving only Beartooth Butte standing to dry as the
water receded.Logically, everything had to happen
quickly, and not over long periods of time as is the current popular theory for
Beartooth Butte. (Back to Top)

Shale beds, such as the Yesnaby Sea Stacks and the Dougherty Gap
Outcrop pictured here, are formations that are often composed of alternating
layers of shale and sandstone. The various layers range from one or two
millimeters to several meters in thickness. The layers of shale where once layers of clay
that have become compressed and hardened into shale. It is generally
thought that such layers were formed over several million years by the
repetitive deposits of shallow lakes, swamps, and rivers. With the
changing sea-levels due to glacial activity, the resulting cyclical drowning of
these areas is thought to have resulted in the cyclical deposition of clays,
silts and sands over fairly significant spans of time. Some of these beds
are in fact quite thick. For example, the Haymond Beds average around
1,300 meters in thickness and contain thousands of layers of shale and
sandstone. However, what is especially interesting about many of these
layered beds is that they contain "trace fossils".
40

Trace fossils are the evident remains of tracks or imprints that
some creature left behind even though the actual body is not there. For
example, when the shale was first formed as an organically rich clay, many
burrowing creatures lived in it, filtering it for nutrients. As they moved
through it, they left trails behind. When this clay was buried by
turbiditic sand flows, the sand filled in these tunnels, trails and other
impressions. As the sand solidified, the casts of these tunnels and other
markings were preserved on the underside of the sandy layer. Since this
underside of a layer is called the "sole", the preserved impressions in the clay
are called "sole casts."

Many argue that these layers must have been formed over long
periods of time because colonies of such burrowing creatures take time to
colonize each layer of clay as it forms. The burrows themselves take a
fair amount of time to create. Glenn Morton, a vocal geologist, comments
that, "These burrows are horizontal and the animals don't seem to be digging
out. They are digging through the sediment. And there are thousands
of layers of sediment with the burrows on them." 39 Morton
actually suggests that when each sandy turbidite covered a layer of clay that
the burrowing creatures didn't burrow out, but died when the sandy layer covered
the layer of clay. He says, "We know that the burrowers who were buried
did not survive. If they had, they would have had to dig up through the
sand to escape their entombment. There are no burrowers going up through
the sand. And, if there had been these burrows, there should be little
circular piles of sand with a central crater pocking the entire upper surface of
the sand. We don't see these." 40

Glenn Morton is not the only one who thinks this
way. This is in fact the prevailing paradigm about how these layers must
have formed. However, there may be an even more reasonable explanation.
If these layers were in fact formed over long periods of time where each
individual layer took at least a few years to form, it seems like tunneling
organisms would mess up the layers. Look at the pictures presented here.
Most of these layers are very thin, averaging only a few centimeters in
thickness. And yet, they are extremely crisp and distinct from the layers
above and below. Burrowers living in lake or ocean bottoms or swampy
areas, burrow all around and cause mixing of the sediments. Such mixing is
known as "bioturbation." However, even the thinnest sandstone units fail
to show any obvious signs of bioturbation, blurring of bedding contacts, or
internal bedding features. Rather they appear as homogenized small-grained
sandstones clearly demarcated from the overlying and underlying layers of shale.
Further evidence suggesting a more rapid formation of the layers comes from work
done by Kuenen in 1967. Kuenen documented the differences in sand textures
between interdistributary bay deposits and turbidite deposits. Using his work as
a reference the sandstone units found at Dougherty Gap best correlate to
turbidite emplacement based on both lithology and bioturbation. Also, the
work of Coleman and Prior gives even more support for this idea. In 1980
they presented photographs of cores taken from a modern interdistributary bay
which in no way resemble the stratigraphy or sedimentation found exposed at the
Dougherty Gap site. 41

Another interesting finding is that these layers
get thicker as one move up the various outcrops. This finding is a common
characteristic of rapid turbidite deposition and is "believed to reflect the
progradation of submarine fan lobes." 41 In any case, this
finding is not consistent with a slow cyclic deposition over vast spans of time.

The sand in the sand layers is also, "well
sorted" meaning that it probably was not deposited slowly. "Good sorting is
particularly significant because the sands are found in an environment where,
unless deposition is very fast, one would expect silt and clay to be
contributed..." 41

Also, almost every sandstone layer exhibits some
degree of sole casts on its bottom surface as well as ripple marks on its top
surface. The upper surfaces of all of the sandstone layers, no matter how
thick or thin, were found to contain "asymmetric, linguoid ripples"
According to Sheehan "... these structures formed in response to unidirectional
currents which occurred either contemporaneously (at the same time) or
penecontemporaneously (immediately following) with sediment deposition." 41

Given all of these findings, what theory makes
more sense? Were these layers deposited slowly where each layer was
created over the course of tens, hundreds or even thousands of years, or were
these layers formed rapidly by successive turbiditic flows in a highly silted
watery environment? Is it reasonable for those such as Glenn Morton to
suggest that burrowing creatures give evidence of a slow formation? What
about the argument that such burrowing creatures must have been killed by each
sandy turbidite so that a new colony of burrowing creatures would have had to
take over the next layer of clay? This argument makes no sense at all.
Since when does a few centimeters of sand kill any burrowing creature?
This argument sounds almost silly, especially if one has ever tried to bury such
creatures under sand at the beach. They simply dig out in short order.
But, what about the fact that no evidence of "escape burrows" with "little
circular piles of sand with a central crater pocking the entire upper surface of
the sand" can be found? No one who considered that the tops of each sand
layer shows current ripples would ask such a question because the watery current
would surely have removed any such piles of sand in short order as soon as they
were made. With each new sandy turbidite the burrowers would simply burrow up
through the sand to populate the newly forming layer of organically rich
material as it rapidly formed over the turbiditic sand flow in a heavily silted
environment. More and more layers would have formed in rapid succession leaving
no time for the bioturbation of lower layers. 41

We are left then with the curious findings of
thin crisp alternating layers of shale and sandstone showing no evidence of
bioturbation between layers and increasing layer thickness as one moves up these
formations. This sort of layering is only consistent with rapid formation
and cannot be explained by the prevailing paradigm where millions of years are
required to produce such shale bed formations. (Back to Top)

Turbidites are not the only problem.
There are also so called nonconformities located within the geologic column. Nonconformities are aspects of the geologic column that are not
expected or whose presence is not readily intuitive given the position that it
is an ancient formation. Common examples of nonconformities are the
"overthrusts" that are found in many places around the world. These areas
are interesting because the layers of the geologic column are apparently in the
wrong order with older layers on top of younger layers. A famous example
is the Lewis Overthrust. First identified by Willis in 1901, this area
encompassing Glacier National Park is more than 300 miles long and 15 to 50
miles wide, with Precambrian strata resting on top of Cretaceous. The fossils
are in the wrong order. Evolutionists date the Precambrian rock at a billion
years while the Cretaceous is dated at only 150 million years. The contact line
between the two different strata is like a knife-edge, without significant
evidence of sliding, linear tracking, or other evidences of friction or
mechanical erosion between the two surfaces. Of course it is the position
of most modern geologists that this 12,000 square mile slab of rock with a
thickness of 3-miles did in fact buckle-up, sheer off, and slide over the
underlying Cretaceous layer for up to 50 miles.6 The sliding
process is thought to have occurred slowly with only portions of the entire slab
moving at any given time... like the crawling of a caterpillar. What seems
strange however is that the rock actually slid instead of warped or crumbled.
The forces required to shake and shimmy a rock of this size would crush the rock
or buckle it before they would overcome the inertial and frictional forces
needed to cause a sliding motion. Also, without evidence of sliding at the
contact zones between the two layers, sliding seems like a rather unlikely
explanation. Rather, the evidence seems much more consistent with an
original sedimentation event that occurred in the order found.

If this is not convincing, consider the
Glarus Overthrust located near Schwanden Switzerland. The geologic order
of this overthrust is Eocene on the bottom, then Jurassic, and then Permian on
top. Of course it should be Permian, Jurassic, and then Eocene on top.
The Glarus Overthrust extends some 21 miles. It appears that they layers
have been flipped. But how does one flip 21 miles of solid rock? Perhaps a
giant fold created the flipped appearance? If so, then erosion would have
to have gotten rid of the overlying layers of the fold without damaging the
underlying layers of the fold. Also, there are no striations or linear
groves at the contact zones between any of the layers to give some indication
that they traveled in a linear direction over anything... like a caterpillar or
otherwise. The irregularities at the bottom of each formation have not
been worn away either. How is this explained? In fact, it seems that the contact zones of these overthrusts found
throughout the world are as crisp as the edge of a knife and yet there are
preserved ridges between layers that have not been ground away or disrupted in
any manner. A fairly dramatic example can be found in the Empire Mountains
of southern Arizona were Cretaceous rock is capped by Permian limestone.
The contact zone, between the layers of rock, undulates like the meshing of a
gear. If the geologic sequences of this formation were really the result
of an overthrust, how did such meshwork avoid getting planed off? There is
no other erosive evidence either such as scraping, gouging, or linear striations
at the contact zones.9

One must also note the many
large gaps in sediment between the layers that are present. In the Glarus
Overthrust what happened to the layers between the Jurassic and Eocene (The
Paleocene and Cretaceous)? Also, what happened to the Triassic layer that
is supposed to separate the Permian from the Jurassic? 7

Also, how are some areas, such are
found in the Grand Canyon, explained where different layers of the geologic
column are repetitively intermixed? For example, there can be found areas
in the Grand Canyon were Mississippian and Cambrian layers alternate back and
forth multiple times... like a deck of cards being shuffled.24
I find that rather non-intuitive.

There are many other similar examples
that could be listed. I just seems to me, even though I am not a
geologist, that such problems have not been clearly overcome by those holding to
the view of the ancient formation of the geologic column. In fact, it
seems that a rapid and catastrophic depositional event or events could explain
some of these problems without near as much difficultly.
(Back to Top)

However, what about those ancient desert sand dune layers in the
Grand Canyon?The popular science of today declares that the Coconino Sandstone layer
(third from the top) used to be an ancient desert formed over eons of time.
It is interesting that most of the layers in the Grand Canyon are felt to have
formed under water. However, the Coconino Sandstone layer is felt to be an
exception to this rule. This theory would mean that a layer of
water-deposited mud (the Hermit Shale) was followed by a layer of wind-deposited
desert sand over the course of between 5 and 10 million years, and then the area
was again covered by water and the Kaibab limestone was deposited.

The Coconino Sandstone layer is quite
interesting indeed.It averages 96 meters in thickness (315ft.) and covers an area of 200,000
sq. miles to include most of northern Arizona from the Magollon Rim, northward
to the Utah border. It is up to 1,000 feet thick at its southern edge and
thins to a few feet at its northern boundary. The total volume of sand is
estimates to be approximately 10,000 cubic miles.14 The sand grains
themselves are fine grained, well rounded and sorted, and composed almost
entirely of quartz with no silt or mud contamination, just like most
desert sand is.Also, just like in modern deserts,
the Coconino Sandstone has inclined cross bedding in it.Cross bedding in sand dunes are areas were sand from one dune are covered
by sand from another dune in a different orientation (different incline).The Coconino Sandstone is filled with these cross beds just like desert
dunes frozen in time.15The sand grains
themselves show microscopic features of long exposure in dry desert conditions.
These features include frosting and pitting on the surface of the individual
grains of sand.This
similarity between Coconino Sandstone and modern desert sand has strengthened
the belief that an ancient desert formed the Coconino Sandstone.16Then comes the clenching argument:All
throughout the sandstone are preserved footprints of vertebrates such lizards or
other similar reptilian or amphibian creatures, as well as less common worm,
spider, and arthropod trails - and even some burrows. The
vertebrate tracks have been referred to as "amphibians and/or as reptiles," but
from the structure of the tracks the majority of them are most easily
interpreted as amphibians however strange it might be to have a majority
population of amphibians living happily in a desert environment.
This is generally explained by suggesting that the desert sands bordered the
ocean or a seaside area.The footprints are located on the preserved surfaces
of the dunes and are believed to have been covered by the shifting dune sand and
thus preserved for all time.17No other fossils have been found in the Coconino Sandstone to include
evidence of any plant life (which seems strange since animals and plants usually
go together - even in a desert). But, given all of these facts, it seems
obvious to many that the Coconino Sandstone is in fact a preservation of a very
large and ancient desert.

The popularity of the desert origin for the Coconino Sandstone began
with the work of McKee in the early 1930s.27 McKee initially
focused on the physical qualities of the sandstone to support his conclusions
that the dunes had been wind and not water deposited. Later he studied the
footprints and concluded that they were most likely formed on dry sand.28,29
However, according to Leonard Brand, "Sedimentary features that were formerly
thought to be diagnostic of eolian deposits are now known to be non-diagnostic.
Stanley et al. (1971) pointed out that "grain frosting is no longer considered a
criterion of wind transport," grain size distribution statistics have been
ambiguous (for the Navajo), and "it can no longer be assumed a priori
that large festoon cross strata prove an eolian dune origin for the Navajo or
any similar sandstone because of the essential identity of form and scale of
modern submarine dunes or sand waves, as documented during the past decade"
(e.g., see d'Anglejan 1971; Harvey 1966; Jordan 1962; and Terwindt 1971)."25

But what about the fact that the Coconino Sandstone
has preserved crisp footprints in delicate detail? Well,
does such detailed trackway preservation happen in dry desert sand?When a lizard walks or runs over dry sand, what happens?Footprint impressions are made, but nothing near the detail and crispness
that has been preserved in the Coconino Sandstone is produced.Now, consider the likelihood that shifting sand will preserve very small
and delicate
footprints made in dry sand.This seems a bit hard
to imagine. In fact, laboratory experiments in real time
have shown that the level of detail found in the Coconino Sandstone is best
explained by the formation of the tracts underwater or on sand that has been
wetted and left standing overnight. According to Brand's experiments the
damp sand trackways that did not stand overnight always had definite foot
impressions but the toe marks were rarely seen. The dampened surface
formed a crust of sand that broke apart into many small pieces when the animals
walked over it. Sometimes these pieces of crusted sand would be pushed up
into a pile at the back of the footprint or be scattered on around beside the
footprint on the surface of the sand. However, if the dampness of the
surface of the sand was thick enough so that it would not break up with the
weight of the animal, the sand would become rather hard and resistant to track
formation. The only tracks produced on this kind of wetted sand were a
series of small dimples left by the toes. The fossilized Coconino
Sandstone tracks did not match the dry or dampened sand tracks produced in the
laboratory by Brand in several ways. The dry and damp sand tracks rarely
preserved toe marks or other details, while the fossilized tracks usually did preserve toe marks. Dry sand tracks also had
large ridges of sand behind them which often flowed back into the previous
footprint. Again, the fossil footprints do not have these ridges nor were
jumbled pieces of crusted sand observed to be scattered around the fossilized
tracks. The proportions of the tracks were also different. Brand
noted that the dry sand tracks were longer than they were wide, but the
fossilized tracks were short in relative to their width. The tracks made
in the damp sand were simply too indistinct to allow adequate measurements.

Brand also did
experiments in which the slope of the sand rose above the water line. As
the animals walked up out of the water their tracks changed as they went higher
and higher from the waterline. Footprints close to the water level were
poorly defined while those a little higher were crisp and clear as far as toe
marks and sole impressions. However, as the animal progressed even higher
to the more firm sand, the tracks became fainter and fainter until only toe mark
dimples could be discerned. This transition effect from well-defined
prints to vague toe marks or scratches is not seen in the Coconino Sandstone.

So why did Mckee believe
that the tracks found in the Coconino Sandstone were made on dry desert sand?
Mckee was heavily influenced in the formation of his desert theory by the
influence of a paleontologist by the name of Peabody who told McKee that
salamanders do not generally make tracks underwater but prefer to swim from
place to place instead of walk. And, even when they do walk, they are
partially buoyed up by the water so that their tracks are vague at best. McKee
seemed to indicate that he had experimentally confirmed these suggestions made
by Peabody. Thus, McKee (1947) concluded that the fossil tracks preserved
in the Coconino Sandstone were most similar to the dry sand trackways produced
in his own experiments because only in dry sand were any definite prints of
individual feet formed.What is strange though is that there
is no documentation of how extensive McKee's observations were as far as
observing salamanders and their swimming or walking habits while under water.

Brand, on the
other hand, documents that all five species in his study walked on the bottom
sands underwater more than they swam from place to place through the water
as long as they had a sandbar or some place in the testing tank where they could
rest. Brand noted that this behavior is also observed in the field.
When walking along the sand underwater all five species selected by Brand
produced distinct footprints with toe marks and occasional sole impressions all
along their trackways. Some of the prints also had ridges of sand pushed
up behind them, but these ridges never extended back into the previous print.
Brand concluded that, "The underwater tracks were most similar to the fossil
tracks. Underwater trackways had toe marks as often as the fossil tracks, and
they were uniform in appearance the full length of the sand slope, as the fossil
tracks are. Also, the proportions of the fossil tracks were most similar to that
of the underwater tracks." 25 However, Brand did leave open the
possibility that such trackways could have been formed on a special type of
wetted sand that had been wetted for several hours (overnight in his
experiments). Based on this evidence many argue that the desert was wetted
on occasion by light mists, dew, or a heavy fog. This allowed the various
creatures living in this ancient desert to make their crisp trackways, which
were subsequently covered by dry sand and preserved. Other dry-land
features, such as raindrop impressions, crisp and steep leeward dune fracture
faces and cracks in the sand, and the preservation of spider trackways are often
cited as evidence in support of this dry-land formation hypothesis in opposition
to Brand's underwater hypothesis.This dry land hypothesis quite reasonable in many respects
that seem to require open air exposure, but there are still a few other very
puzzling features that do not seem so consistent with a true desert-like
environment or dune formation.

What is rarely mentioned in the literature is that the
vast majority of the Coconino trackways all head uphill.18
Evidently the lizards/amphibians, arthropods, spiders and other creatures living
in ancient deserts did not like going downhill much at all.
Also, trackways often start and stop suddenly without evidence of
sand-shift or disturbance - like the creature suddenly vanished into thin air
(or swam off in the water).18, 19, 20

McKee attempted to explain the relative
absence of downhill trackways by suggesting that the animals tended to "slide"
downhill, thus obliterating their own tracks in the sliding sand. One might
wonder why the animals would slide downhill when they were doing do fine going
uphill without the sliding problem. Those who have ever visited areas with
desert sand dunes will find that trackways on such sand dunes go every which
way. Also, one would expect that wetted sand would be much more cohesive
than dry sand and preserve tracks just as crisply no matter which direction the
creatures were heading. And, just in case there was any doubt, Brand
performed a few more experiments. Brand actually went to the trouble of
inducing his experimental animals to walk both downhill as well as uphill.
On underwater sand, wet sand, and damp sand, almost all downhill trails produced
easily recognizable trackways. On dry sand, the trackways of salamanders
were less well defined, but still relatively well preserved, while that of lizards were still quite distinct (both walking or
running slowly). Only when running very fast did their tracks become
unrecognizable. Thus, the almost complete absence of downhill tracks in
the Coconino Sandstone layers seems to remain a mystery if they are truly desert
formations. It almost seems as though the creatures were trying to escape
something, like rise water levels, and that is why they were all generally going
uphill?

Brand also noted one other unusual
aspect of some of the Coconino trackways. On occasion, there would be trackways
that would head directly across a given slope at one angle or another, but the
toe marks of both the back and front feet would be pointed up the slope.
It seems unlikely that the animals that made these trackways would have walked
sideways for such distances. Some have argued that desert lizards
sometimes walk sideways in order to angle themselves to reduce the absorption of
heat radiated from the scorching desert sand. The problem with this
argument is that the sand was wet and therefore relatively cool - certainly not
scorching hot. Others have suggested that a strong wind blew the animals
sideways. This idea requires a very strong wind indeed to blow a
relatively low profile lizard or salamander sideways in an even pattern for
significant distances. Brand suggests that the more likely explanation is that
these animals were walking in an underwater current, which seems at least
plausible.

Also, the architecture of the Coconino
sand dunes is not like that of modern sand dunes in modern deserts.
The Coconino sand dunes have an average slope angle of 25 degrees while the
average slope angle of modern desert dunes is 30 degrees (the resting angle of
dry sand).21Sand dunes formed by underwater currents do not have as high an average
slope angle as desert dunes and do not have avalanche faces as commonly as
deserts dunes do. Some crisp avalanche faces are found in the Coconino
Sandstone dunes suggesting that at least some exposure to open air occurred, but
such exposure may have been intermittent and relatively brief.Still what explanation can be given for the
microscopic pitting and frosting of the grains of sand?It
turns out that desert sand is not the only sand that can be pitted and
frosted.The chemical process of sand cementation in the
forming of sandstone can also cause pitting and frosting.22

So, it appears that the evidence does
not fit the classic dry desert formation of the Coconino Sandstone layer over
millions of years of time. Many of the trackways may even have been formed
underwater or at best on long standing damped sand dunes where all the creatures
walked only uphill. Ocean currents can and do make very pure quartz sand dunes with specific
characteristics that match the dunes in the Coconino Sandstone.23Heavy ocean currents can in fact amass huge quantities of sand in a very
rapid timeframe. The sand dune angle found in the Coconino Sandstone layers
would require a depth of water of around 300 feet and a fairly brisk current.
In such a scenario, large dunes with cross bedding can be made very quickly.

Consider also that there is no significant erosion between the
Coconino Sandstone layer and either the layer above it (the Toroweap Formation)
or the layer below it (the Hermit Formation).All of these
layers formed like sheets of glass - one on top of the other.42Isn't it strange that significant portions of these layers have not been
weathered away to be filled in by overlying layers in an uneven
way?
In fact, large contraction cracks penetrating deep into the Hermit Formation
(just below the Coconino layer) are filled in with Coconino sandstone. If
the Hermit Formation took millions of years to form, which would surely turn the
layers in this formation into solid rock in a small fraction of this time, how
did such deep cracks form in solid rock in such a way that the surface was
completely flat and yet the cracks themselves were filled with pure Coconino
sandstone? One would think that if such formations and characteristics
took long periods of time to form that the boundary between the Hermit Formation
and the Coconino sandstone would have been blurred by "bioturbation", disturbed
in an uneven way by erosion, and that the cracks found in the Hermit shale would
have been filled with other contaminants besides pure Coconino sandstone.
Of course, these findings are not strange if the layers were all formed
relatively rapidly by water deposition instead of over vast expanses of time
(and yes, cracks do form in mud underwater as a result of cohesion of clays
during "dewatering").
So, which theory has better explanatory value? (Back to Top)

Fossil meteorites are indeed quite rare in the geologic record, but not
completely absent.

Two Swedish scientists made the first positive identification of a fossilized
stony meteorite (Astronomy, June 1981) in the Lower Ordovician layer. Per
Thorslund and Frans Wickman reported in Nature that a 10 centimeter
object found in a limestone slab from a quarry in Brunflo, central Sweden in
1952 is really a stony meteorite as demonstrated by microscopic examinations and
other properties.

In 1988 another Swedish meteorite, called "Osterplana
1," was discovered in Lower Ordovician Limestone about 5 million years older and
300 miles away from the first one (Hansen and Bergstrom, 1997, p.1).
Twelve more meteorites have since been found at the Thorsberg Limestone Quarry
in Sweden.

Beyond meteorites, dozens of impact craters have been found from the
pre-Cambrian to Pleistocene throughout almost every layer of the geologic
column. For a list of these impact sites see the following: Link

So, you see, it isn't true that the geologic column contains no evidence of
meteorites or meteorite impacts. It does.

However, it seems
like these meteorites are more difficult to find than expected if the geologic
column does indeed represent hundreds of millions of years of elapsed time.
The current rate of meteor impact over the entire globe (for meteorites greater
than 100g in size) is about 14 per 10 km

2
per year (link). That's 1,400
million meteorites per 100 million years (i.e., 140 million kilograms or about
280 million pounds) per 10 km2.
You'd think they'd be a bit more common.

For example, looking at the layers in the Grand Canyon in particular, according
to mainstream geology, it would take an average of 100 million years to deposit
about 100 feet (~30 meters) of sediment (link). Sandstone weighs about 2,323 Kg/m3.
There are 3 billion cubic meters in a 30 meter layer of sediment covering 10 km2.
That's a total weight of almost 7 trillion Kg. Of this, 140 million Kg
should be made up of meteoric material ( 0.002%). Another way to look at the
same problem is that there should be enough meteoric material to make up about
60,000 cubic meters of sediment in 100 million years (0.002%).

Now, this might not seem like a significant percentage, but it is quite
significant given that only a handful of meteoric rock fragments have ever been
found in the layers of the geologic column. There should be literally tons
of them. Yet, geologist Davis Young (1988, p.127) writes that, "The chances of
finding a fossil meteorite in sedimentary rocks are remote. It is not to be
expected." G. J. McCall, in Meteorites and Their Origins (1973, p.270),
said, "The lack of fossil record of true meteorites is puzzling, but can be
explained by the lack of very diagnostic shapes and the chemical nature of
meteorites, which allows rapid decay..."

It seems that rapid
decay would have to be very rapid indeed - especially since far more delicate
fossils are discovered far more commonly than are meteorites within the geologic
column and fossil record.

There are some other interesting things
to note about the geologic column.Many of its layers, wherever they are found in the world, are sorted with
the courser material on the bottom and the finer material on the top of that
individual layer (Except in the case of underwater slumps where the material is
sorted fine to course). 2 Does this sorting make sense to have
happened over millions of years?Sorting like this
does not take place today except in specific circumstances.This kind of sorting only occurs naturally in water, and specifically in
underwater mudslides called turbidites.I think it
is interesting that much of the geologic column looks exactly like turbiditic
layering.3 In fact, geologist today no longer accept the long
prevailing hypothesis of uniformitarian deposition, but have opted instead for a
more "punctuated" formation of much of the column. These punctuations are
generally felt to be the result of sudden catastrophic events with long
intervening periods of relative quietness. The does make some sense in the
fact of the fact that turbidites create sedimentary layers almost instantly.
However, turbidite flow does not flatten or significantly disrupt lower layers.
Thus, any erosion or unevenness in lower layers will be preserved. The
fact that the layers are generally flat seems to indicate that they were already
very flat before the next turbidite came along. (Back
to Top)

Volcanic activity adds yet another
twist.Each eruption has a chemical signature.
It is known that a volcanic eruption leaves a specific chemical fingerprint in
its sedimentary layer.From the study of active
volcanoes, this fingerprint is quite specific.If the same volcano erupts at least 6-8 months later, it will have a
detectable difference in its fingerprint. 4, 5, 77Many of the sedimentary layers in the geologic column have volcanic
sediment in them.It is very interesting to note
that in some places, where there are over 20 layers containing volcanic sediment
(ie: The layered fossil forests of Yellowstone National Park), there may
be only three to four different chemical volcanic "fingerprints"
or "signatures" among all the layers.4, 77 How can this be
when each layer supposedly took thousands of years to create?Every layer should obviously have at least one unique "signature" if not
many different signatures.But, this does not happen.In fact, it gets
even more interesting.Many times, the signature in
the bottom layer will be exactly the same as the signature found in the top
layer. 4, 77 (Back to Top)

Varves are sedimentary layers generally
interpreted as being laid down in a yearly banding pattern with one varve being
laid down once per year, like tree rings.
A true varve consists of a couplet
of summer silt and winter clay, a period that is difficult to demonstrate.
It is thought that by counting the varves in a lakebed, one can determine a
fairly accurate age for that lake bed. Ancient dates are
calculated for these lake beds using varves, sometimes into the millions of
years based on varve estimates.90In the fall 1994 issue of Science Speaks,
Don Stoner (1994) stated that the Green River Formation of Utah, Colorado and
Wyoming "contains more than four million annual layers." He then says,
"Obviously, this means that the lake existed for millions of years before it
disappeared."

This is a great theory. It
certainly sounds reasonable at first glance. However, there are
just a few problems with this theory. If this it is true that only one varve is made per year, then how could
a leaf survive exposed while it waited years and years to be completely buried?Multiple varves are now known to form very rapidly in certain situations.91

Buchheim and
Biaggi (1988) measured Green River Formation "varves" between two volcanic tuff
beds each two to three centimeters thick. Geologists consider each tuff
bed a synchronous layer, i.e., every point on that tuff bed has the same age.
The two tuff beds thus represent two different reference times. If the
laminations in between these two beds are annual layers, the same number of
layers should be present everywhere between the two beds. Buchheim and Biaggi
found the number of laminae between the tuff beds ranged from 1160 to 1568.
Lambert and Hsa (1979) measured "varves" in Lake Walensee, Switzerland and found
up to five laminae deposited during one year. From 1811, which was a clear
marker point (because a newly built canal discharged into the lake), until 1971,
a period of 160 years, they found the number of laminae ranged between 300 and
360 instead of the expected one per year or 160.

Some rather interesting experiments
with varve formation have also been done.
Julien, Lan and Berthault (1994) experimentally produced laminations by slowly
pouring mixtures of sand, limestone and coal into a cylinder of still water.
Using a variety of materials, they found that laminae formed if there were
differences in size and density of the materials and that the thickness of the
laminae depended upon differences in grain size and density.

Fischer and Roberts (1991) state, "In some cases
the observer counting varves is left in doubt as to which couplets are varves
and which are subvarve units, a matter that was handled in our image analysis
varve counts by arbitrarily counting only variations above the 30 micron level."
In other words, they arbitrarily chose 30 microns as the minimum thickness to be
used for computer analysis. However, many laminations are less than 30 microns
thick. Also, many of the "varves" consist of organic layers squeezed together
with very tiny carbonate laminae in between. There is no consistency in varve
structure.

Geologists have
suggested other causes of lamination as potential contributors to varves,
including storm events, turbidites and glacial meltwater. Each one of these is
aperiodic, producing laminations with no relation to annual, cyclic processes.
For example, turbidity currents from melting snow or heavy rain produce extra
couplets.92

Our
investigations supported de Geer's first contention that sediment-laden
floodwaters could generate turbidity underflows to deposit varves, but threw
doubt on his second interpretation that varves or varve-like sediment are necessarily
annual.(Lambert and Hsa, p. 454) 92

Turbidity
currents can mimic varves, especially at the end of the flow that is farthest
from the source or sediment. (Hambrey) Many supposed varves are multiple
turbidity current deposits and do not represent seasonal changes.

It is very
unfortunate from a sedimentological viewpoint that engineers describe any
rhythmically laminated fine-grained sediment as 'varved.' There is increasing
recognition that many sequences previously described as varves are multiple
turbidite sequences of graded silt to clay units...without any obvious seasonal
control on sedimentation. (Quigley, p. 151) 92

Turbidity flows
have the surprising ability to deposit silt and clay quickly in equal
thicknesses. Under normal conditions, silt usually settles in a few days and
clay can take years to settle.

As both clay
and silt fractions are transported to the site of deposition at the same time,
successive surge deposits are likely to have similar proportions of silt and
clay. In other words, thick silt layers will have thick clay layers, and thin
silt layers will have thin clay layers. (Smith, pp. 198-199) 92

Turbidity flows
are independent of season and can continuously deposit microlaminae throughout
the year, including the winter:

In many cases
where large ice lobes or glaciers sit or float in lakes, there is year round
delivery of sediments and turbidite activity occurs almost continually resulting
in graded laminae that are not true varves. (Quigley, p. 152)

How many
varve-like layers form from year to year becomes anyone's guess. Wood (1947)
describes peak river inflows after light rain that deposited three varve-like
couplets in two weeks. Just as we have seen in many situations, e.g., stalagmite
and canyon formation, strata deposition, and fossilization, time is not the
essential factor for their development, although evolutionists insist that such
things took much time to form. While evolutionary catastrophists admit rapid
formation, they almost invariably propose long periods of tedium between
catastrophic events. (Ager) 92

Steve Austin, who
has done much field work at Mount St. Helens, documented in his new book
Grand Canyon: Monument to Catastrophe (see announcement on last page) that
the volcano eruption produced 25 feet of volcanic ash varve-like deposits from
hurricane-velocity surging flows in five hours.92

To summarize the above
findings:

1). Controversy exists as to the source material comprising varves
as well as the mechanism of their cyclic formation.

2). Lamination counts in historically known sections have been
demonstrated not to correspond to elapsed years or counts are inconsistent.

3). There is frequently uncertainty as to how many laminations
constitute a varve and the use of arbitrary minimum sizes may lead to erroneous
conclusions.

4). There are many nonseasonal mechanisms for producing laminations
such as storms, floods, turbidites, glacial meltwater and spontaneous
segregation of dissimilar materials. All of these causes of laminar deposits
indicate that varve-like laminations are a common effect of many nonseasonal
processes.92

5). Various materials that decay rapidly over time,
such a delicate leaves, have been found extending through many "annual" varve
layers (see above photo).93

Now, lets take a look at continental drift or plate tectonics.According to today's popular scientists, the continents of today were
once connected in an original continent by the name of Pangea.Pangaea, is thought to have been made up of two major
landmasses: Laurasia in the north, and Gondwanaland in the south.Very slowly, over the course of two hundred million years, the continents
split apart and drifted away from each other to their present-day positions.

Some form of this idea has been around for
about 200 years. The theory of continental drift was first proposed by Alfred
Wegener in 1912. Initially it was rejected by the scientific community
because Wegener was unable to propose an adequate mechanism to explain the
drift. However, in the 1950s and 1960s, interest in the theory revived
with the help of a new science called paleomagnetism where bands of reversing
magnetic polarity extended parallel to the mid oceanic ridges and seemed to
indicate some sort of oceanic expansion. Other forms of data seemed to
support the hypothesis of seafloor spreading. From these beginnings, the
concept of plate tectonics was born.

There is much intuitive
evidence to support this theory.As one looks at a global map of the world, it is clear that the
continents do in fact seem to fit together - like a giant puzzle.Geologic layering and coal samples are very similar at the separation
zones of the various continents. It seems intuitively
obvious that continental drift did occur and that at one time the various
continents were in fact connected.In fact, the drift is still occurring at about 2cm per year on average
and in some places as much as 5cm per year.

But how does this drift occur? According to the current theory of plate
tectonics, the earth's outer shell, or "lithosphere", is divided into several
large, rigid plates (13 major plates and over 100 "microplates") that move over
a soft layer of the mantle that is known as the "asthenosphere". At their
edges or boundaries these plates touch each other and their independent
movements affect each other as they slide past or into each other. Such
interactions are thought to be the cause of most of the seismic and volcanic
activity on earth. When the plates collide, they buckle and the buckling
results in mountain ranges and ocean trenches. Oceans form where the
plates drift apart.

Initially those who first proposed this idea of continental drift were thought
to be crazy. However, with discoveries of paleomagnetism and other evidences,
such as the rather obvious puzzle-piece match of various continents, the theory
quickly gained popularity. By the mid-1970s, almost 90% of western geologists
believed in the validity of plate tectonic theory. Despite its
problems, plate tectonics became so popular that it suppressed all other
potential hypothesis of earth dynamics. Not everyone was pleased by this.
In fact, even some of the proponents
of plate tectonics have themselves admitted that a "bandwagon atmosphere"
developed, and that data that did not fit into the model were not given
sufficient consideration,33
resulting in "a somewhat disturbing dogmatism".34 McGeary and
Plummer acknowledge that "Geologists, like other people, are susceptible to
fads."32,35

Fad or not, the popularity of plate tectonic
theory is undeniable and this popularity is felt by some to be limiting the
exploration of any other possible theories as belief in plate tectonics is so
strong that it is difficult to get any other hypothesis published if it seems to
move against this paradigm.32
This popularity is maintained despite the fact that, "When plate tectonics was
first elaborated in the 1960s, less than 0.0001% of the deep ocean had been
explored and less than 20% of the land area had been mapped in meaningful
detail. Even by the mid-1990s, only about 3 to 5% of the deep ocean basins had
been explored in any kind of detail, and not much more than 25 to 30% of the
land area could be said to be truly known.36 Scientific understanding
of the earth's surface features is clearly still in its infancy, to say nothing
of the earth's interior." 32

The fact of the matter is that scientists are finding certain aspects of the
earth's crust that simply are not easily explained by the theory of plate
tectonics as it currently stands. Some of these problems are more readily
apparent than others. Perhaps one of the more easily discernable problems
is one that involves the maintenance of fit of the continents over the course of
200+ million years of drift since Pangea. Consider that over relatively
short time periods, erosion, deposition, and sedimentary river delta deposits
change edges of landmasses significantly.For
example, three hundred years before Christ, Ephesus was a seaport city on the
coast of the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor.Within only
800 years, the city was no longer a port city, but an inland city.The historian Pliney said that, in ancient times the sea used to wash up
to the temple of Diana [in Ephesus].The reason for this regression of the sea is that the relatively small
rivers of Cayster and Meander run near the city.Over the years they deposited so much sediment that the land extended
some several miles in a relatively short time.Today Ephesus is located about five miles inland.

With all the erosion and on all the
various continents and rivers depositing deltas like the ones at Ephesus, should
the continents not, over a 200+ million year period, loose the shape of their
ancient coastlines?Currently, according to the US Army Corp of Engineers, the United States
coastlines are in serious danger.The Louisiana
coastline is being lost at a rate of at least 25sq. miles per year.Both the eastern and western United States are being eroded at rates fast
enough to warrant millions of dollars spent on coastal erosion prevention at an
annual cost of around $500 million.Florida alone
spends over 8 million dollars annually on coastal erosion prevention.11In just over 50 years, some of the coastlines in Washington State have
regressed over 300 meters.12The
coastline of Texas is being eroded at a rate of between 1 and 50 feet per year
depending on location.13At the Eastern
side of the continent, the landmark lighthouse at Cape Hatteras, built more than
1500 meters (5000 feet) inland in 1879, was threatened with collapse because the
coastline had been eroded to such an extent that the lighthouse had to be
moved some 1,600 feet inland (in 1999) to save it. 89At this particular point the sea has been moving in
at a rate of a mile in 150 years, (once around the earth in less than four
million years). The same is true for the eastern and western coastal countries
of Africa who depend on the stability of their coasts for tourism.Japan is spending billions of dollars to preserve its coasts from
erosion.Every coastal country in the world is
worried about erosion.

So, knowing this, let us be very conservative and say that an
average coastline changes only one centimeter per year.
This would not be enough erosion to worry anyone right?However, how much change would that be in 200 million years?The change would be two thousand kilometers (1,200 miles) . . .
Enough to erode (or deposit) half way through the United States!This does not appear to be the case though.The coastlines of the various continents still match up very well - not
to mention the fact that the continents themselves have not been washed away
within this time.I mean, judging by the current
rate of erosion, Louisiana would have been subjected to 5 billion square miles
of erosion/deposition in 200 million years.That is more than 300 times the size of the entire North American
Continent (15 million square miles)!That is
actually fifteen times more land than the entire surface area of the Earth
itself to include that covered by water (317 million square miles)!

Now,
I am not saying that rates of erosion do not fluctuate and change, but it
seems fairly obvious that with even minimal amounts of continental erosion, the
continents of today would not match up so easily if they really had separated
from each other over 200 million years ago.The evidence does not appear to fit the theory - not even close.An extremely rapid continental drift in the recent past seems much more
likely.A great deal of sudden energy would be
required to cause such a rapid and global continental drift.Such a sudden release of energy would most likely cause incredible global
catastrophe.Massive floods, earthquakes, and
volcanoes would occur suddenly on a global scale.

Of course, these are not
the only problems with the theory of plate tectonics. Consider the
following comments by David Pratt detailing a few potential flaws with the
theory:

Plate tectonics
-- the reigning paradigm in the earth sciences -- faces some very severe and
apparently fatal problems. Far from being a simple, elegant, all-embracing
global theory, it is confronted with a multitude of observational anomalies, and
has had to be patched up with a complex variety of ad-hoc modifications and
auxiliary hypotheses. The existence of deep continental roots and the absence of
a continuous, global asthenosphere to "lubricate" plate motions, have rendered
the classical model of plate movements untenable. There is no consensus on the
thickness of the "plates" and no certainty as to the forces responsible for
their supposed movement. The hypotheses of large-scale continental movements,
seafloor spreading and subduction, and the relative youth of the oceanic crust
are contradicted by a substantial volume of data. Evidence for significant
amounts of submerged continental crust in the present-day oceans provides
another major challenge to plate tectonics. The fundamental principles of plate
tectonics therefore require critical reexamination, revision, or rejection.32

Pratt goes on to
challenge many of the basic tenets of the plate tectonic theory to include the
most fundamental concept of plates sliding over the lubricating asthenosphere.
It seems as though the lithosphere, which makes up the solid plates, averages 70
km thick beneath the oceans and at least 125 to 250 km thick beneath the
continents. However, recent seismic tomography of the oldest parts of the
continents have very deep roots that extend to depths of around 400 to 600 km
with no asthenosphere beneath them. Certain geologists have publicly
recognized that these findings cast serious doubt on the original lithosphere-asthenosphere
model of thin plates sliding over a lubricating layer.32 As it
turns out, the plates are not really solid, intact, plates at all, but are
instead composed of broken-up pieces of various shapes, sizes, structure, and
strength. Based on this problem Pavlenkova concludes:

"This means
that the movement of lithospheric plates over long distances, as single rigid
bodies, is hardly possible. Moreover, if we take into account the absence of the
asthenosphere as a single continuous zone, then this movement seems utterly
impossible." She states that this is further confirmed by the strong evidence
that regional geological features, too, are connected with deep (more than 400
km) inhomogeneities and that these connections remain stable during long periods
of geologic time; considerable movement between the lithosphere and
asthenosphere would detach near-surface structures from their deep mantle
roots."

The very process or "driving force" of
plate movement is also coming under fire. It has long been theorized that
the driving forces of plate movements are deep convection currents that well up
beneath the mid-ocean ridges and then circle back down beneath the ocean
trenches. The problem with this theory is that the mantle appears to be
horizontally layered. Such convection currents do not seem to be
consistent with such layering. It was hoped that seismic tomography would
give clear evidence of such convection-cell patterns. However, seismic
tomography has actually provided strong evidence against the existence of
convection currents that are large enough and strong enough to move continental
plates. In fact, many geologists now think that the small upper layer mantle
convection currents that do exist are the result of plate motion rather than its
cause.32

Currently, the favored mechanisms used to
explain plate movements are the "ridge-push" and the "slab-pull" methods.
The slab-pull is thought to be the "dominant" mechanism. It refers to the
gravitational sinking of the subducted slabs as they slide under the edges of
continental shelves. Of course, subduction does not happen for the edges
of plates that are largely continental because continental crust cannot be
subducted due to its relatively low density. This is a problem because
subduction cannot be used to explain the movement of certain massive continental
plates such as the Eurasian plate. The reason for this is because the plates
themselves are not internally strong enough for forces along their edges to be
transmitted across the entire plate. In other words, pulling or pushing forces
would crush or fracture the crust before the forces could be transmitted to the
rest of the plate. It is somewhat like trying to pull a train engine with dental
floss.

The theory of subduction has other problems
as well. For example, the mid-ocean ridges, where new crust is thought to be
produced, total 80,000 km in collective length. However, only about 40,000 km of
ocean trenches and "collision zones" exist. It seems like crust is being
produced in more areas than it is being subducted. Where then does the rest of
it go? Certain specific examples are also interesting, such as the African
plate. Africa is allegedly being converged on by plates spreading from the east,
south, and west, yet it exhibits no evidence whatsoever for the existence of
subduction zones. Antarctica, too, is almost entirely surrounded by alleged
"spreading" ridges without any corresponding subduction zones. Also, if
subduction has been occurring over 200+ million years, one might expect that a
lot of oceanic sediment would be scraped off the ocean floor and piled up
against the overlying plate, filling up the trenches. This might seem like an
obvious expectation, except for the fact that it is not observed in real life.
The ocean trenches do not have enough sediment in them if subduction has truly
occurred in these areas over the course of millions of years. Scholl and Marlow
(1974), who support plate tectonics, admitted to being "genuinely perplexed as
to why evidence for subduction or offscraping of trench deposits is not
glaringly apparent."32
In order to maintain their theory, plate tectonicists have had to resort to the
notion that unconsolidated deep-ocean sediments can easily slide under overlying
plates without being scraped off or leaving any other significant trace behind.
Also, these trenches often show a very low level of seismicity and often have
flat-lying sediments at their bases that are not angled as if they were being
subducted.32

The hypothesizes directional movements of the
plates themselves are also being questioned using "space-geodetic techniques"
such as "very long baseline interferometry (VLBI), satellite laser-ranging
(SLR), and the global positioning system (GPS). Some scientists claim that
these instruments have unequivocally supported the theory of plate tectonics.
As it turns out, some of the measured movements do seem to verify certain
predictions of plate tectonic theory. However, many of the results have
shown no definite pattern, and have been confusing and contradictory. For
example, Japan and North America do appear, as predicted, to be approaching each
other, but the central South American Andes seem to be keeping a constant
distance from both Japan and Hawaii (they are predicted to be separating).
Also, surprisingly, trans-Atlantic drift has not been demonstrated. It
seems rather that the North America and western Europe are not moving as rigid
units, but show significant intraplate deformation or movements. Also,
geodetic surveys across the "rift zone" between Iceland and East Africa have
failed to show the theorized widening postulated by plate tectonics.
(Back to Top)

But
what about paleomagnetism? Most geologist believe that paleomagnetism confirms
the predictions of plate tectonic theory. Paleomagnetism is a study of the
magnetic properties of the earth's crust. What is especially interesting is that
along the mid-oceanic ridges, there is a parallel "zebra-striped pattern" of
alternating magnetic stripes or bands where one strip is oriented in one
direction while the strip next to it is oriented in a different or even reversed
direction. The theory is that as these rocks cooled during formation, the
magnetic polarity of the Earth at that time was preserved in the rock like a
taperecording. After the polarity was established in the hardened rock,
reversals in the Earth's polarity would not change the polarity in the solid
rock. Thus, only in newly forming or liquid rock would the molecules be able to
line up with the current polarity of the Earth. In this way, magnetically
oriented bands of rock would be formed where the oldest bands are farthest away
from the mid-oceananic ridge where new crust formation is thought to occur along
a spreading fault. The pattern of these lines seems to outline the movements of
various plates quite well...

However, there seem to be just a few problems
with paleomagnetism. One would think that as the sea-floor spread out from the
ridge that the alternating "normal" and "reversed" magnetic bands would extend
vertically all the way through the crust. Vertically drilled cores have shown
that this is simply not the case. The surface pattern of alternating bands of
magnetic polarity is not preserved as neatly in the rocks below the surface.
Interestingly enough, the magnetic polarity changes back and forth as one moves
down the core samples. This finding seems to disprove the theory that the
oceanic crust was magnetized entirely as it spread laterally from the magmatic
center.32 Some scientists are even suggesting that magnetic reversals
were formed very rapidly.38

Consider also the theory that the oceanic
plates must be relatively "young" as compared to the continental shelves. Since
the oceanic crust is continually made by the mid-ocean ridges and then moves
outwards to be subducted under other plates, the youngest rocks will be closest
to the ridges and the oldest will be those rocks farthest from the ridges. The
problem is that "shallow-water deposits ranging in age from mid-Jurassic to
Miocene, as well as igneous rocks showing evidence of subaerial weathering, were
found in 149 of the first 493 boreholes drilled in the Atlantic, Indian, and
Pacific Oceans. These shallow-water deposits are now found at depths ranging
from 1 to 7 km, demonstrating that many parts of the present ocean floor were
once shallow seas, shallow marshes, or land areas. From a study of 402 oceanic
boreholes in which shallow-water or relatively shallow-water sediments were
found, Ruditch (1990) concluded that there is no systematic correlation between
the age of shallow-water accumulations and their distance from the axes of the
midoceanic ridges, thereby disproving the seafloor-spreading model... There is
evidence that the midocean ridge system was shallow or partially emergent in
Cretaceous to Early Tertiary time. For instance, in the Atlantic subaerial
deposits have been found on the North Brazilian Ridge, near the Romanche and
Vema fracture zones adjacent to equatorial sectors of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, on
the crest of the Reykjanes Ridge, and in the Faeroe-Shetland region...
Geological, geophysical, and dredging data provide strong evidence for the
presence of Precambrian and younger continental crust under the deep abyssal
plains of the present northwest Pacific. Most of this region was either
subaerially exposed or very shallow sea during the Paleozoic to Early Mesozoic,
and first became deep sea about the end of the Jurassic." 32

There are many other problems detailed by
Pratt as to why the current theory of plate tectonics may in fact be fatally
flawed. A link to his paper can be found below for those who are
interested. (Back to Top)

It seems then that the popular theories of
geology and the formation of the geologic column may in fact have significant
flaws that might be better explained by a relatively sudden global catastrophe
or closely spaced series of very large catastrophes. At least it seems
like the door is open to this possibility as well as to the idea that the
geologic column may not represent billions of years of earth's history, but may
in fact have been formed rapidly. (Back to Top)